


The Wolf Among Us: Season Two

by Retro_pure_jdonica



Category: Fables (Willingham) - All Media Types, The Wolf Among Us
Genre: F/M, guess im writing season two, rip telltale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2019-07-17 07:12:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 32,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Retro_pure_jdonica/pseuds/Retro_pure_jdonica
Summary: Exactly as the title says, I wrote a second season of The Wolf Among Us since telltale won't be making it anytime soon. What to expect: Rose Red (Snow's sister), Prince Charming, even more emotions, even more sexual tension, even more characters, also i fixed Beauty (Belle)





	1. Chapter 1

“Nerissa, wait!” Bigby yells, chasing after the girl who now stood still almost half a block ahead of him. He pauses a few feet behind her, still shocked by the idea that had just slipped into his mind.

“You finally figured it out.” The redheaded girl smiles softly, turning around on the heels of her shoes to face the sheriff.

“Who… are you?” He asks, releasing a deep breath. The calm city block held onto the silence that surrounded the only two people on the street. After recent events, many of the Fabletown residents were slightly fearful of leaving their house, and many of those who were courageous enough to venture outside didn’t blame them.

“I am Nerissa; and I have been, most of the time.”

“But-”

“Most of the time. I don’t believe you have ever had the pleasure of meeting the real Faith, though.” Nerissa explains, a strange sadness and regret laced through her voice.

“So it was you. That night at the Woodsman’s apartment, it was really you.” Bigby states as more of a question, still very unsure of the situation.

“Yes.” She responds simply.

“But, why?”

“For the same reasons I just told you moments ago. I left Faith’s head on your doorstep to get your attention. I glamoured myself as Faith to give you more of a motive and motivation for finding the killer, Georgie, as quickly as you could. I assumed finding the head of an acquaintance was at least slightly more impactful than finding the head of a stranger on your doorstep.” Nerissa explains, somewhat ashamed of her actions for an unknown reason. She had always hated lying, but had become rather numb to the idea over the past few months in her knew undesirable occupation, yet lying to someone she now considered a friend reminded her of that guilty sting that always came along with lying.

“H-how were you able to come up with doing all that so quickly?” Bigby asks quietly, his voice still faltering due to his awe of the situation.

“It just made sense to me. I’m sorry for-” Nerissa pauses, not exactly knowing what she was apologizing for. “Toying with your emotions. I just had to make sure Georgie and the Crooked Man were caught and dealt with.”

“Don’t apologize. I should probably be thanking you for your help on the investigation. Seriously, you were a big help.”

“I did what I thought was best. Well, sheriff, it looks like we’ve both done all that we can here. I assume you haven’t slept in about a week, so you can go indulge in that now that your case is closed, and now that I’ve done my help and gotten the Crooked Man and Georgie locked away I can finally leave, maybe start fresh somewhere without magic.” Nerissa explains with a promising and hopeful smile.

“Where will you go?” Bigby asks, a rare tone of concern in his voice.

“Somewhere… quieter. Somewhere with no ribbons or Mr. Smiths.” The girl laughs slightly at her own misfortune. “Anyway, say goodbye to Snow for me, will you? And make sure she’s okay too after all that’s happened.”

“Will do.” The sheriff says, thinking a proper goodbye would be too difficult for him. Right after turning around to walk back to the Woodlands, the girl calls his voice one last time.

“Oh, and Bigby, one more thing.” She says softly, setting her bag and umbrella down on the warm concrete sidewalk that the two stood on. She raised her right hand and with a simple pull removed the purple ribbon she kept tied around her neck. If she had done so even two days ago, the action would have killed her. “I hope you still like it.” She smiled, placing the ribbon in his hand and closing his fist around it. “I’ll see you around, Wolf.”

After her goodbye, she picked back up her things and turned the corner, disappearing from Bigby’s view for what he assumed would be a while. He planned to immediately fulfill her last wishes and go speak to Snow. Placing the small purple ribbon in his pocket, Bigby walked back to the building which had been his home for nearly a century.

***

“Bufkin, is Snow here?” The sheriff asks, entering the hot and seemingly empty Business Office. Knowing that Snow was very busy as the newly unofficially appointed Deputy Mayor, he decided to come later in the afternoon when the usually long line outside of the office had disappeared. The large blue monkey swoops down from a bookshelf that ran along the back wall of the massive room and lands on the large wooden table Bigby stood by.

“No, Mister Bigby, she left about an hour ago. Would you like for me to ask the mirror, he has been keeping me company since Miss White left.” The monkey replies, unaware of how childlike his reply was.

“Nah, she’s probably just in her apartment now, but thanks, Bufkin.” Bigby sighs, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it between his lips.

“Of course, Mister Bigby, have a good evening.”

Bigby leaves the office after his short visit and heads to the elevator around the corner and goes up to the tenth floor. The basic structuring of the Woodlands was that the higher the level the better room, excluding the witches’ Thirteenth Floor, which was evident by the fact that Bigby’s apartment was on the second floor.

He walks up to Snow’s apartment door which was decorated with a small, blue wooden letter W hanging below the room number. A few seconds after knocking, the door swings open and the sheriff was met by Snow wearing pajamas, an incredibly rare sight since all she seems to do is work. Her blue silk slip hung loosely on the sides of her body, ending about halfway down her thighs. She wrapped her floral sleeping kimono around herself and tied it, covering up more of her chest.

“Oh, good evening, Mr. Wolf.” Snow greets Bigby, opening her door more as an invitation in.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” He asks, entering Snow’s apartment before pausing to wait for her to catch up with him. The sheriff looks around the large apartment, not having seen the inside quite often. Snow’s home was easily four times the size of Bigby’s, and size wasn’t the only large difference. The ex-princess kept her living quarters incredibly tidy and clean. The living room, the only room that was currently visible other than the kitchen, was full of furniture that appeared as if it was from almost a century ago, and it probably was. It was all made of glossed ebony wood, matching the owner’s hair, and the couch and chairs were cushioned with decorative green fabrics. Large bookshelves that nearly reached the ceiling were on either side of the room and were packed full of books, while the other wall was almost entirely glass.

“I-I don’t know.” She laughs at herself. “Possibly my unconscious enforcing my superiority as your official boss on you.” Snow jokes, brushing off the rather uncomfortable question. “So, what did you come for?”

“Nerissa stopped by earlier, she had some news and some stuff she wanted me to tell you.” Bigby explains as he wanders into the living room, Snow following closely behind him. As he sits down on the large couch, a small, tan colored bunny hops out from the kitchen and comes up to Snow.

“Hello there, Peter.” The kind woman smiles, picking the bunny up from the ground and setting him in her lap.

“Huh, I didn’t know you had a pet rabbit.” Bigby laughs at the small animal, twitching its ears as it sniffs around the couch.

“I got him a few months ago. I feel a little bad because I don’t get to pay much attention to him but he has lots of toys and is always out to play when I’m home.” Snow explains, reaching over to a small glass bowl sitting on the side table and picks out a tiny orange cylinder. “Here, it’s a treat, give it to him.” She says, handing the treat the man sitting next to her as she glances down at her pet.

Slightly uncomfortable and unsure of what to do, he opens his hand in front of the bunny and waits for it to hop forward and accept the treat. Peter soon jumps off of Snow’s lap and cautiously shuffles forward before accepting the present from the stranger. The rabbit bounces up into Bigby’s lap and rubs his small head against the wolf’s hand. “W-what is it doing.” He stutters, clearly unfamiliar with small pets.

“Well, for starters Peter is a he, not an it and it seems like Peter is showing some affection towards you.” Snow laughs, watching her pet enjoy himself with this new person. “Well, Bigby, it looks as if you’ve made a new friend today.”

“I’m honored.” Bigby smiles, feeling slightly odd about how little tension there was in the room right now. Over the past few months, Snow had been so stressed with walking on eggshells around Crane, not to mention how hectic and hellacious the past week had been, that it was strange to talk to her and for her to seem calm and not stressed out or incredibly anxious.

“So, what did Nerissa have to tell you?” She asks, bringing the two back to the original subject of the visit from the sheriff.

“Well, she’s leaving Fabletown and she wanted me to tell you that she said goodbye to you.” He begins with his story, deciding to start with the easiest news first and work his way to the more intense topics.

“Why is she leaving? Do you know where she’s going?”

“I’m not sure why she’s going, but, I understand why she would want to get away from all these bad memories. I guess there isn’t much left for her here. She didn’t say where she was going either.”

“Oh, okay, is that all?” Snow asks, thinking there was probably more to the situation. If the only news the sheriff had to deliver, he probably could have just told her at work tomorrow. Although, her heart sped up at the possibility that that was all of the news and he had just come to chat or to check up on her. At work, she had to show her stricter side in order to gain any respect in this town but when she wasn’t working and could be her calm self, it was comforting to have someone check on you which rarely happened to her.

“No, um there are a few other things. Do you remember the night you found Faith’s head and I said that I had met her earlier that night at the Woodsman’s place?”

“I don’t think I can ever forget that night, Bigby. Trust me, I’ve tried.” Snow replies, filling the space between the two with a sudden sadness. As much as Bigby knew Snow hated being viewed as fragile or vulnerable, sometimes it was unavoidable and since those unavoidable moments of naivete and defenselessness were so rare and intense they pulled at his heart that much more.

“Well, turns out that I didn’t meet Faith that night. I’ve never actually met her. I met Nerissa who was glamoured as Faith. She told me just before she told me she was leaving today. She said she thought that me finding an acquaintance's head would be more impactful than finding a stranger’s head and give me more of a drive to find her killer.”

After a few moments of sitting in silence, neither of the two quite sure of what to say next, Snow finally broke the silence. “God, I feel so awful for her. I can’t imagine going through all of the stuff she’s been forced to go through. I just hope that she ends up having a better life in, well, wherever it is she’s going.”

“Me too.” Bigby pauses before moving onto the last topic, knowing that it was going to be the most hard-hitting for Snow, not to mention that the two hadn’t really talked about it since, well, ever, unless she considered the few minutes the two had spoken about Crane to each other at Lily’s funeral. “There was, uh, one last thing Nerissa wanted me to ask you, I’ve been wanting to ask about it too.”

“Oh?”

“Crane. We never really got any time to talk about it and I wanted to make sure you weren’t still too shaken about it. I know I was when I found out and it didn’t even directly involve me.” Bigby says, having no idea how the woman sitting across from him will respond. Snow wasn’t quite sure what to say either. She had been trying her absolute hardest to not think about it. Her current working schedule was helping her out by giving her too much work to have any free time to think about it. This is what she tended to do with many of the rather horrid things that occurred during her life: her stepmother attempting to kill her many many times, her husband cheating on her with her sister, having had another awful prince chasing after her, determined to take her as a wife, and now this.

“I-I honestly don’t know if I’m okay or not, Bigby. I try to forget about it and move on, although it affects me more than I’d like to admit. I just feel… dirty. Like I want to crawl out of my own skin. I mean, I have known Crane for a hundred years, over a third of my life, and to find out how he thought about me. I’m just going to try my absolute hardest to forget about it; I don’t think coping can really apply to this situation.” Snow allows her mind to wander, keeping her gaze strictly downwards, feeling too uncomfortable to look anybody in the eyes while she talks about such repulsive topics.

Bigby freezes once more, not able to think of anything to say, something that seems to be somewhat of a trend during this conversation. “I’m sorry, Snow; I shouldn’t have asked.” Is what he decides on responding with, and so he does.

“No, no, it’s fine.” She replies, looking up once more as she wipes a small tear off of her cheek. She always hated crying in front of people, it was just another action that made her feel vulnerable, but it was once again virtually unavoidable in this situation. “I’m sorta glad you did, I sometimes feel as if I’m losing my mind over all of these recent events and it's nice to talk to someone about it. Sometimes.”

Suddenly, Bigby remembers something that he thinks can help lighten the tension. He pulls a small wooden box out of his pocket and hands it to Snow. "It's from TJ, he gave it to me right before he left for the Farm." He explains as Snow opens the present.

"I remember this one; I told him it was my favorite." She smiles as she looks at the little blue critter in the case right below the words "to Miss White" written in sloppy, childlike handwriting.

“Huh, yeah, that's what he said. Well, I haven’t slept in about a week and now that I finally have some damn time to I’m going to.” Bigby says, closing the visit as he stands up from the couch.

“Same here, thank you for stopping by.” Snow smiles as her and Peter follow behind Bigby as he walks back to the front door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Bigby, goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Snow.”


	2. Episode 1: Chapter 2

“Well then, Mr. Wolf, Miss White… Bufkin, I shall leave you to your business now.” King Cole smiles at the leading figures of Fabletown before nodding his head and walking out of the Business Office, presumably to return to his home at the very top of the Woodlands and not return for another decade or so, as he usually does.

“So, how does it feel to officially officially be the Deputy Mayor now?” The sheriff asks, trailing behind his newly appointed boss over to her desk. The large wooden table that had bore an IC emblem on the front for the past century was now replaced by an SW, which the sheriff preferred much more.

“Not any different. I’ve pretty much been doing this job since the fifties.” Snow laughs, sitting down in the cushioned red chair behind the desk, causing a small strand of hair to fall out of her bun and into her face. “Although, it does sound exciting to still be doing the job of the Deputy Mayor and actually be treated like it, and not a useless assistant. Also, a bonus is that now you can’t tell me when I can help out in your investigations or not because I’m your boss.” She smiles, a wicked type of excitement filling her eyes.

“Oh, you are going to abuse that power, aren’t you.” Bigby sighs with a laugh as he pulls his cigarettes out from his pocket.

“Well, I never exactly appreciated you or Crane attempting to tell me what I am and am not allowed to do when it was none of your concern. Once my new assistant begins work I certainly won’t treat them the way you two treated me for decades.” Snow snaps, harshness filling her voice as she sat up straight. She sighs, looking down at the table as she attempts to return to her calm state. “Nevermind that, though, it’s Sunday so I don’t plan on staying in this office any longer.”

“Where are you off to?” Bigby asks, following Snow with his eyes as she stands back up and heads for the door.

“Belle and I are going out to lunch. What about you?”

“Huh, like I get days off.”

***

“Good afternoon, Beast. Could you tell Belle that I’m here?” Snow asks her friend’s husband after he opened the door to greet her.

“Of course, I’ll be right back.” He replies in a cold tone, poorly disguised by a fake smile.

“Hello, Snow, how are you today?” Belle smiles, stepping outside of her apartment in her typical outfit of some pairing of wedges, a loose blouse tucked into a dark fitted skirt, and her go to red jacket. Her long brown hair was tied up into a braided bun that sat atop her head.

“I’m doing well, I was just officially appointed Deputy Mayor so lunch is on me today.” Snow replies as the two walk down the short hallway before entering the elevator.

“Oh, please don’t do that, I’ll feel bad.” Belle sighs with a soft smile as they descended down to the first floor of the building.

“Nonsense, I like treating you. Also, after we eat we can go back to my apartment and watch some TV if you like.” 

“Of course, I’ll pretty much take any excuse to get out of the house.” Belle sighs once more as they walk out the front doors of the Woodlands. Snow goes to say goodbye but sees that Grimble is, unsurprisingly, asleep so she just continues her walking.

“Uh oh, is everything alright?” Snow asks as the two walk down the Bullfinch street toward their typical Sunday lunch meeting spot of The Eggman diner.

“It’s still pretty tense in the house about my side job, and Beast’s lack of being able to find a current job but he’s going to some interviews this coming week so hopefully we’ll be able to sort everything out. Beast just really likes to complain and he tends to do it to me.” Belle explains as they walk into the diner and seat themselves. A waitress promptly comes to take their orders and, once she leaves, the two ladies begin chatting about their lives. They consider inviting Briar Rose or Cindy, but they decide to not bother the two on a Sunday afternoon.

“Well, I hope everything ends up settling down and fixing itself. I just wish things could go back to normal, back to the way they used to be back home.” Snow sighs, feeling a sense of remorse and apathy fall over her, a feeling she tended to get quite often and definitely hated.

“Yes, but I prefer to not focus on the bad things, or the past, and just hope for the best in the future.”

“God, I wish I could forget about the past.” The Raven haired girl sighs, a light self-deprecating laugh tangled through her words.

“Is everything okay, Snow? You seem a little down today.” Belle asks, suddenly seeming very concerned.

“Yes, I’m fine, it’s just- I’m fine.” She replies shaking the thoughts from her head.

“How’s therapy going?” The other woman asks before taking a short sip from her drink.

About a month ago, Snow had decided to begin going to therapy to help her find different ways of coping with her rather traumatic past, not to mention her rather traumatic present.

“It’s… okay. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells attempting to avoid saying things the mundies aren’t used to, but other than that it’s very good.” Snow felt a slight tinge in her heart before continuing with her story. Although Belle had been a very close friend to her for nearly a century, she was still very hesitant about opening up with anyone. “As you may know, I tend to deflect things and put on a rather rough shell when I’m around people, it helps me stay in control and prevent any more bad things from happening to me, but it isn’t very nice. We’ve been talking about ways that I can protect my emotions without coming off as mean or rude.” She explains, keeping her eyes separated from Belle’s as much as possible.

“Snow,” Belle begins, causing her friend to look back up at her. “I’m really proud of you, seriously. It must take a lot to go through all that you have and still try to see the good in the world and change so that you can be kind towards it.”

“Thank you.” Snow replies, feeling her cheeks redden at the sincere praise. “Anyways…” She sighs, pushing the two into a new conversation topic. “Have you been able to find a new job?”

“I’m still looking too, I may have to work at a mundie place, though. There are barely any jobs in Fabletown that aren’t government related or very, very unfavorable.” Belle sighs, referencing her and Beast’s previous odd jobs. “Speaking of government jobs, how is yours now?”

“I haven’t really gotten used to it quite yet, so I can’t say, but I am very excited to meet my new assistant, I honestly don’t think I’ve met a new Fable other than Nerissa and the Crooked Man in decades.” Snow laughs at her reserved ways.

“Do you know who your new assistant will be?”

“Yes, her name is Gabrielle. In fact, I’m pretty sure she’s from your kingdom back in the Homelands. King Cole mentioned her briefly earlier today. Apparently, she used to work at the Puddin and Pie, just to keep herself afloat which I hate to think about, but she seems very smart and kind from what King Cole. I hope she can provide a voice for the less-well-off Fables in the community.” Snow explains, being partially interrupted halfway through as the waiter dropped off their meals.

“Well, I hope she’s just as kind and smart in person as she is in the description.” Belle smiles before beginning to eat her lunch. The two eat and chat periodically for the next hour or so before heading back to the Woodlands, going their separate ways once they reached the elevator. Since Bigby said he never gets days off, Snow decided to step into his office in hopes that he’s still in there and ask if anything happened while she was gone.

She knocked twice before entering the small, cigarette scented office where she found the sheriff sitting back in his chair, smoking and staring at his typewriter which was halfway down a page. When Snow opened the door, his eyes shot up to meet hers. “Hello, I had hoped I’d find you in here. Did anything happen while I was gone? I would ask Bufkin but I’m afraid he’s not quite as reliable as you.” She asks with a sigh.

“Nothing happened, but you do have a surprise visitor waiting for you in your office. She’s been putting up with Bufkin for the past half hour waiting for you so I would go check on here before returning to your day off.” Bigby explains, rocking back and forth on the hind legs of his chair.

“Oh, okay, thank you.” Snow smiles softly before exiting, curious as to who this visitor may be. She gets scared for a moment as she hesitates outside her office door before realizing that it may be her new assistant. She opens the door and finds a blonde woman sitting at her old desk, shaking her head as Bufkin attempt to offer her some of his wine that he found. From the look on her face, this wasn’t his first attempt.

“Bufkin!” Snow scolds him, walking over to meet the woman who is potentially Gabrielle. The monkey looks down before flying away into the endless cave of bookcases. The second the visitor hears Snow’s voice, she shoots up out of her seat and smiles widely.

“Oh, hello, you must be Ms. White. I’m Gabrielle, your new assistant.” The woman introduces herself, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She wore her long golden hair down with it twisted and pinned on the sides to keep it out of her face. A light pink blouse hung loosely around her body, tucked into a flared white skirt decorated with small red flowers.

“Oh, you can call me Snow, everyone here does. It’s so nice to meet you, Gabrielle, I’ve been very excited to meet you since I heard your name from King Cole this morning.” Snow smiles warmly, shaking the other woman’s hand.

“Thank you, it’s nice to meet you as well. A majority of the details and aspects of this job are still rather blurry to me since the hiring process was rather rapid and hectic, so, if you don’t mind, could you walk me through what my exact job will be here?” Gabrielle asks, her intelligent manner of speaking impressing Snow.

“Oh, of course! Basically, whenever I’m too busy to do something or I’m unavailable, you’ll fill in for me. Sometimes you may run errands for me as well, but that part of previously being an assistant was always slightly belittling to me so I’ll try to not do that to you very much. I did work with the sheriff quite often, whom you may have met, but that’s just because I wasn’t given much work and we have known each other for so long.” Snow begins to explain, hoping that this job doesn’t sound too boring or too difficult. “You will also, hopefully, be able to provide more of a voice for the less-well-off citizens of the town, which seems to have been one of the large issues in previous years. Although, now that I’m Deputy Mayor and Cr-” She pauses, not even wanting to mention the name. “the previous Deputy Mayor is gone, we’re pretty much reforming the office so the direction of your job is kind of in the air at the moment.”

Gabrielle hesitates before responding, now having more questions about the job than she did before asking. “As long as I am able to provide influence and assistance into the Fabletown government, I will be pleased.” She smiles, revealing small dimples on either side of her face.

“That’s wonderful.” Snow gushes, happy to see an ordinary citizen so happy and pleased about the fact that Fabletown even had a government. “Well, as you probably know, Sunday is typically our day off so why don’t you go home and enjoy yourself. I assume you’re staying here in the Woodlands now?”

“I’m still in the process of moving in, but thank you so much for the introduction, it was lovely to meet you.” Gabrielle smiles one last time before walking out of the Business Office. Snow stood in awe for a moment at how kind and caring her new assistant was, it was so unlike the typical tense and rough feeling of the Business Office. 

“Bufkin, I hope you didn’t torment that nice girl too much.” Snow sighs with a laugh, although there was a slight tone of disappointment in her voice, as she too walked out of the Business Office.

She planned to go right back to her apartment and relax, but she decided to swing by the Sheriff’s office for a moment to talk to Bigby. She didn’t bother with knocking before she swung the door open and stepped inside, finding the sheriff just as she had left him about fifteen minutes ago. “Have you meet her?” She asks, a smile forming on her lips once more.

“The new assistant? Yeah, why?” Bigby replies simply, flicking a cigarette but into his ashtray as he lit another between his lips.

“She’s-” Snow stutters, struggling to find the words to describe her. “so nice, and caring, and relaxed, and just overall wonderful.” She smiles, sitting herself down in the chair that stood in front of the sheriff’s desk, typically used for interviews or confessions.

“Okay, when I say I met her I mean that she came in here for two seconds and asked where you were and I said to go back into the Business Office and shout for Bufkin.” He explains, indirectly saying that he doesn’t know much about her.

“Well, when you do fully meet her, and you will because if it doesn’t happen naturally I will force it, you will see what I’m talking about.” Snow replies, not quite sure herself if she’s joking or not, before almost immediately standing right back up and heading to the door. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” She sighs before leaving and closing the door behind her, not even giving the sheriff time to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so Gabrielle is supposed to be one of those girls who was obsessed with Gaston in Beauty and the Beast but they didn't have names and I don't really know how to say who she is in the book so I'm just telling you here


	3. Episode 1: Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for 100 reads in just a week!

“Good morning, Snow.” Gabrielle smiles, standing up from her new desk, causing her knee-length pink skirt to flounce up around her.

“Good morning, it looks like you beat me here.” Snow replies, setting her purse down on her desk. Monday mornings were always a drag for her, fore she only got one day off a week and returning from that blissful peace was exhausting. So exhausting, in fact, that she woke up late which caused her morning to be filled with very unusual events. Waking up late was already unusual enough for her, she typically always woke up on time, but because she did she didn’t get to drink her morning coffee and didn’t bother with taking the time to put her hair up into her bun that she usually wears it in. Amid this laziness, she also decided to skip out on her go-to blazer and pencil skirt duo and settled for a loose fitting blue blouse tucked into a pair of jeans.

“It appears so.” Her assistant laughs in response. “So, is there anything you need done?” 

“Yes, in fact, there is. There is an abundance of letters we have received over the past few months about needed assistance that have not been addressed yet. Bufkin knows where they are, so if you could just call him and have him bring them to you and sort out the ones that are the most serious and that have been waiting for the longest and give them to me at the end of the day, that would be wonderful. If there is anything from Mr. Toad about his apartment building at all, put it with the important things, we need to figure out what to do with it now that he’s at the Farm. Also, if you would, please make a separate pile of Fables asking anything about glamours, that’s another issue that needs to be dealt with.” Snow informs her and verbalizing everything that needs to be done just makes it seem all the more pressing and extreme. However, people shouldn’t start showing up for meetings for the next hour, give or take a little bit, so Snow decides to go talk to the sheriff about their possible idea of taxing the Fables. It’s something Snow had been thinking about for months, just a way to provide even more financial help to those who are in desperate need and also a way to not be so easily manipulated by Fables like Bluebeard. “Good morning, Bigby. We need to talk about something.” She sighs, walking into the small office.

“Uh oh, that sounds serious.” He replies with a small laugh, leaning back in his chair.

“Not really. Come back into the Business Office with me, I want Gabrielle to be a part of the conversation.” Snow shrugs, turning right back around and leaving the office door open for the sheriff to follow in behind her. “Gabrielle, can I borrow you for a minute? We need to discuss some stuff.” She says loudly, walking over to her desk. Gabrielle looks up from her papers before walking over to her bosses desk where the three Fables gather together. “I don’t believe you two have been properly introduced: Gabrielle, this is Bigby, the sheriff, and Bigby this is Gabrielle, my new assistant.” The two simply nod and smile at each other, but neither says a word.

“What’s going on?” Gabrielle asks, twisting her foot around on the front of her high heels, slightly scuffing the white fabric covering her toes.

“So, nothing is certain at all yet, but I want us to start planning to tax the citizens of Fabletown. Nothing as high as the mundies have it but creating enough revenue so that we can do more to help them and not depend on donations from the wealthy. Gabrielle, I wanted you to be a part of this to give an outside opinion.” Snow explains, talking rather tediously about the subject but still maintaining her in control facade.

“How would we… enforce that?” The sheriff asks since that was probably his only involvement in the situation, other than possibly having to work even more now that he’s getting paid more. That is, if he or Snow working more is even possible.

“I mean, you wouldn’t get in trouble for not paying them, you just wouldn’t get the benefits of paying them. Say, if someone didn’t pay their taxes they couldn’t call you if someone robbed them; they’d have to either try to solve the issue on their own or call the mundie police, and I can’t think of a single Fable who would be fond of either of those options.

“Well, since the majority of the Fabletown population isn’t doing too well financially and we aren’t going to seriously enforce these taxes, then it seems rather likely that nobody will pay the taxes and we’ll have to either fold and drop the plan or the Fabletown government will dissolve,” Gabrielle explains, a slight worry in her voice.

“I know you haven’t been here long, but the people seriously depend on us to dish out orders and assistance. If they don’t have us helping them, it would be detrimental to them. I also thought that some of the tax revenue could go toward the 13th floor to pay off a portion of the glamours, making them cheaper for everyone, and glamour price has been a big issue recently.” Snow explains, and the two are very impressed by her people-pleasing logic.

“Well, how much were you thinking?” Gabrielle counters,

“I propose a 10% tax on all yearly earnings of Fables. We don’t need that much because Bluebeard will most likely still give us his donations since our government protects him from being arrested with the general amnesty. Even if he doesn’t, the 10% tax should equal or even be more than what his yearly donations are.” Snow explains, making a lot of sense with her reasoning and calculations. “We can sort out the rest of the details later, just keep that in your minds and think on it for a while.”

Everyone goes back to their previous tasks and works away. Snow’s meetings begin to pile in and drag on all day long. Gabrielle finishes her assigned task rather quickly and is able to help Snow with meeting with some of the Fables since there were just so many. Both of the women began to, after talking about it, really how much the Fables do depend on the government. Their dependence was so high that it almost became annoying; some Fables came in complaining about mundie traffic while others came in complaining that they could barely afford to live. The Fabletown government had almost become an all-knowing entity in the eyes of the Fables, causing them to expect wonders from it while giving nothing in return, and if those wonders weren’t delivered, there was going to be hell to pay.

After what felt like a year, it was finally 6 o’clock in the afternoon, which meant that it was officially time for the Business Office to close. That, however, didn’t stop the citizens from lining up outside the door. Snow eventually cut off the line, but couldn’t turn away those who had already been waiting. “Thank you so much for your help today, Gabrielle.” Snow says with an exhausted smile as her assistant goes to leave the Business Office. “Oh, before you leave, could you tell the sheriff to come in here for a moment?”

Gabrielle simply nods before leaving the office. As Gabrielle walked out, so did the Fable Snow was just meeting with which was a signal for the next to come in. This Fable was the last in line, and possibly the worst: Jack. Before Snow even began their conversation, the sheriff entered, which she was thankful for. Any excuse to now talk to Jack was one that Snow was willing to take. 

“Gabrielle said you needed me?” Bigby says as more of a question, walking up to Snow’s desk.

“Yes, I need to finish up this last appointment but we need to continue our conversation about taxing and-”

“Woah, what about taxing?” Jack cuts Snow off. Instead of telling him to hush, she turns back to him and gives him a deadly glare, which luckily has the same effect.

“As I was saying, I don’t feel like staying in the office any longer so can you just go wait in my apartment? I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She requests, taking her keys out of her purse and handing them to Bigby. “Here, take these files. They have some of the calculations I’ve worked out so far. I’ll see you soon.” Snow says, handing him a large stack of yellow folders filled with charts and numbers. “Alright Jack, what’s your problem this time?”

***

“God, everyone in this town is so exhausting.” Snow sighs as she enters her apartment, slamming the door behind her as she leans against the wall and kicks off her heels. Bigby was surprised, she had only been in her meeting with Jack for about half an hour; meeting with that mess often takes twice that amount of time. While she was busy, Bigby had done very little work other than run through the files and check all of Snow’s numbers. In truth, there was very little he could do without her there to talk things through. Taxation was brand new or the Fables and a very risky business. If it were to fail, all faith in the Fabletown government could be lost.

“Huh, tell me about it,” Bigby replies with a small laugh. Although the Business Office attracted the more incompetent Fables, the Sheriff’s Department attracted the rowdier and truly exhausting of the bunch.

“Oh, don’t give me the opportunity or else I really will tell you about it and it would take over five hours.” Snow replies, her slightly joking comment was harshly contradicted by the anger and annoyance in her voice. “I’m honestly considering quitting, and I don’t talk about that lightly.” She tells the sheriff, still pacing around in the living room, fore she was still too fired up to even sit. That comment struck something in the sheriff.

“Snow, please don’t, you are the only thing keeping me from going insane in my job.” He protests, standing up from the couch to walk over towards her. Snow had never mentioned quitting to him. Sure, she had talked about how the job was intense and the citizens tended to not like her that much but it never had seemed to really get to her. She was pretty tough when it came to that stuff, so seeing her so shaken by it was concerning.

“Thank you I-I’m really trying my best but it’s just never enough for these people. I work my ass off down in that office constantly and half of the work I’m doing is dealing with people who are complaining about me not doing my job well enough. I-I just don’t know what else I can do.” Snow complains, talking faster and louder than usual due to her current anger, causing her to stutter over her words. For some strange reason, it almost pained Bigby to see this woman he knew so well in such a defeated state. It seemed to him as if she was on the verge of tears, and in truth, she was. She had always hated feeling defeated, useless, and that’s exactly what she was feeling right now.

“Snow, please don’t say that the other Fables are just-”

“I know how they are, but what if it’s not them who’s the problem. What if it’s me?”

“You know the problem isn’t really-” He attempts to protest, but he is once again cut off. As Snow kept on talking, it began to hurt Bigby more and more to see her like this.

“Maybe I’m just not cut out for this. I give it my all and it’s still not good enough. That has to mean that something is wrong with me, it can’t all be that-” But this time, it was she who was cut off. Not cut off by another beginning to speak, but rather cut off by the pair of lips that were now pressed against hers. She stood for a moment, allowing herself to calm down as she placed her hands on the shoulders of the man who stood in front of her. All too soon, he pulls away, yet keeps his head down.

“I’m sorry, I just…” Bigby trails off, having absolutely no idea what to say. Snow, also not knowing how to respond to the situation that she had been waiting for for over 100 years, decided to respond in a way that didn’t require words. Placing her hands on either side of his face, raising his head up to kiss him once more.

“I guess I’m sorry now, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no they don't fuck i just didnt know how to end the chapter


	4. Episode 1: Chapter 4

A rapid and loud knocking echoes from Bigby’s door, causing him to wake up much earlier than usual. Rubbing his eyes after getting up from the single chair that sat in his living room, he paced over to his apartment door, slightly irritated and very tired. “Please stop leaving your phone off the line when you get home, it would make telling you urgent messages much easier.” A female voice snapped the second Bigby opened his door.

“Good morning to you too, Snow.” He sighed in response, agitated from being woken and then immediately yelled at. “What’s the urgent message this time?” He asked, silently praying to himself that it wasn’t another murder.

“Someone burned down Toad’s apartment building.” The ebony haired women replied matter of factly, clearly enraged about the issue. The rage quickly spread to the sheriff.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Yes, of course, this was all a joke, just wanted to keep you on your toes!” Snow says sarcastically. “No! Of course I’m being serious and you need to get over there right now.”

“Do the mundies know? I thought the building was officially Toad’s.” Bigby asks, following her down the hallway and toward the elevator.

“A building partially outside of Fabletown territory burned down, of course they know! The fire station was called by nearby mundies and some of the residents didn’t even have glamours. This is the nearest we’ve been to complete exposure! It is his, he paid it off like 200 years ago but even if it’s not mundie property they’re still going to be curious.” She rambles on, a confusing mixture of pure anger, fear, and anxiety.

“Well, that’s not true, there was that one reporter back in ‘28 who threatened to expose us in the papers.” Bigby reminded her, his botched attempt at calming her agitation which was bound to be a failure. Attempting to make Snow feel better when she’s angry rarely works, it typically just adds to her anger.

“Yes, but then Bluebeard killed him and covered it as a suicide. What do you want us to do? Kill the whole block? Or maybe we can use a mass memory wipe spell, that’ll only cost a few thousand dollars that we don’t have.” Snow replies, reassuring him that his attempt had indeed failed. “Just go down there and try to find out what caused it and, if the case, who caused it. If it was a person bring them down here immediately; risking exposure of the Fable community can be punished by up to 200 years in prison.”

“Will do.” The sheriff sighs, walking out the front doors of the Woodlands and towards the burned down apartments.

When he reaches the building, it’s worse than he possibly could have imagined. Over half of the slum was burned down to nothing but a few deeply scorched wooden planks. The other half was still partially standing but completely burned over and far past salvaging. The yellow exterior had turned to a dry and dusty powder that had turned reddish black. Glass from fallen window panes littered the sidewalk before the front door. Everything in the area was dripping wet from being sprayed down by the mundie firemen and a large huddle of over fifty people stood on either side of the building lot. A murmur arose among them as the sheriff stepped near.

He walks over towards a small group of Fables speaking to one another filled with people he doesn’t quite recognize which means he most likely hasn’t spoken to them in over a century. “Did the mundies see anyone out of their glamour?” Bigby asked, possibly his most important question.

“Hmph, hope not.” One of the men slurs, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“I-I don’t think so,” A woman in the group speaks up. “But it came pretty close. A lot of them are hiding in back alleys right as we speak. They came, put the fire out, then rushed back off. We already know who started it, though.”

“Who?” Bigby asks, putting stress on the fact that she didn’t say what. “You mean a person started this?”

“Yeah, the one and only Woodsman. I bet he’ll be glad to see you. The dumbass got wasted as always and fell asleep on his bed while smoking; set the damn mattress on fire. It woke him right up and he ran right out and left the bed to set the building on fire.” She explains to him, her voice suggesting that she was looking down on him rather than being annoyed by him.

“How do you… know all this?” The sheriff asks, assuming that the Woodsman didn’t just walk around telling everyone that it was his fault.

“The firemen told us the room where the fire started, we knew it was Woody’s. A few guys got pissed that they wouldn’t have a house so they ran after Woody and threatened to kill him. He got all nervous and, still being hammered, ended up telling them what had happened.”

“Thanks. Where are you all gonna live now? Aren’t you upset that your house and belongings got burned down too?” Bigby asks, her statement putting the question into his mind.

“Not like I had much of anything of value to burn anyway.” She shrugs, making the sheriff feel much worse than her being sorrowful of her losses. “We’ll probably all find a new Mundie owned place to live at, they aren’t all that bad. I’ve heard that the rent for a decent middle-of-the-line apartment for mundies is cheaper than what the rent was here.” The woman explains, giving a small silver lining.

“Yeah, hopefully with some of these guys moving in with mundies they’ll become less afraid of getting a mundie job. It would help out a lot.”

The girl laughs under her breath and looks down, shaking her head for a moment before responding. “I’ve been working with mundies for a century. Not good jobs, granted, but these other guys are just stubborn and dogmatic. They’re decent paying and are definitely better than starving or being a hooker.”

 

“Huh, we need to get you to say that at some sort of town meeting.” The sheriff laughs, thinking about how much he and Snow had been trying to get that message out to the other Fables for years. It was hell to see other Fables suffer financially and something like this could help them.

“Sign me up.” She chuckles, a slight hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Anyway, the Woodsman is right in the middle of that circle of yelling people if you want to go join or take him back to the Woodlands.”

“Will do.” The sheriff responds, stopping himself from turning around to make one last comment. “Thank you for the help with the situation, and I wasn’t kidding about you making that announcement in front of the community.”

“I’ll think about it.”

***

“You’re telling me this whole thing was the Woodsman’s fault because he was smoking?” Snow asks, raising her voice as she begins to drown in her own anger.

“In my defense…” The Woodsman begins to mumble, still intoxicated.

“Shut up, I am not speaking to you right now.” She snaps, staring him down with a glare that could kill.

“Yep, the Mundie firemen and news crews came as well. It was on tv about an hour ago and will probably be on in the morning when every Mundie will see it again.” Bigby explains, knowing that it won’t do much to make Snow feel better, but it should scare the Woodsman a little bit.

“What the hell, Woody? If this goes downhill and we get exposed because people become too interested in our land then it’s all your damn fault you drunkard!” The Deputy Mayor yells at him, practically steaming. However, the sheriff thought she had very good reason to be so mad. This is the closest they’ve been to exposure in about half a century. “We can schedule an official hearing for you later this week, but for now, you're going to be held in the jail cells in the basement- where you should’ve been for years.”

The sheriff sensed her getting a little too irritated, seeming as if she was about to explode. “Snow, could I talk to you in the hall for a moment?” He asks, attempting to get some privacy from the peering eyes of the Woodsman.

“Sure. Bufkin, make sure this idiot doesn’t wreck anything else.” She sighs before leading the way for the two into the hallway outside of the business office.

“This is most likely going to be alright by the end of the week. I talked to a girl there who said a lot of the Fables are going to start living in Mundie owned apartment buildings. There will probably be another load of Fables taken to The Farm but after that, everything will be alright. Buildings burning down aren’t too uncommon for Mundies.” Bigby explains, attempting to calm Snow with rational thought, which seems to be the only way to get any message to her.

“You don’t know that! What if someone sees a non-human Fable walking around and calls 911 or goes to a news broadcaster?” She asks, speaking as if she’s yelling but remaining quiet.

“Everyone will think they’re crazy, even if they get a picture. It’s like that Bigfoot thing they have.” He continues, and he sees that he has successfully gotten through to her.

“Fine, let’s just get Woody into a cell and go back to sleep, I’m exhausted.” Snow sighs once more, shaking her head as she looks down at the ground.

“I’ll take him, you can go ahead and go back up to your apartment.”

“Thank you, I’ll see you back in the office in a few hours.” Snow replies with a faint smile before walking away back over to the elevator to go home. The sheriff walks right back into the office. 

“Alright, Woody, let’s take a little field trip.”


	5. Episode 1: Chapter 5

“Good morning, Gabrielle, how are you today?” Snow asks as she walks through the doors of the business office for the second time that morning. Gabrielle, having her own key and plenty of ambition, had tended to get to the office earlier than Snow.

“I’m doing well, I’m also ready to start for the day whenever you are. I also was working on some possible ideas and projections for the new taxation experiment the other night if you would like to take a look at them.” Gabrielle replies, her soft golden hair bouncing as she quickly stood up from her desk. Snow was taken aback for a moment by the amount of effort Gabrielle was putting into this job.

“That, um, that would be wonderful. Thank you so much for doing this.” The Deputy Mayor smiles as she takes the file from the woman’s outstretched hand. “We don’t have any meeting appointments lined up for this morning, we could work on these taxation plans if that’s alright.”

“Sure, whatever I need to do. I was thinking about also possibly doing a form of a welfare program for, well, I guess people who are in similar situations as to those I have encountered in the past. It could be very beneficial to community morale and prevent strikes or tension since it will be helping those who would be most upset by this action.” Gabrielle explains, once again leaving Snow in awe.

“That sounds great, Gabrielle, do you have the necessary numbers and everything for those ideas in here?” She asks, to which her assistant responds with a nodding head.

“Yes, and I was also considering beginning a program where we can provide Fables with Mundy forms of identification such as IDs, drivers licenses, and the like. If we were to promote Fables getting jobs with the Mundies, which I assume we are, it would ease much of the tension and really promote the idea.” Gabrielle continues, seeming to be on the tips of her toes to help out Snow and the whole community as much as possible.

“That’s a wonderful idea, I don’t think I ever would have thought of that. If we are able to put this taxation proposal into place, one of the first things we would do is give you a raise. I mean, seriously, this is wonderful.” Snow gushes, it was wonderful to have someone who is on the same level of competence and talent in the office with her. For the past century, her job had mainly been picking up the slack of those around her. Amid this pleasure, however, there was a slight twinge of anxiety inside the woman’s heart due to fear that her assistant’s talent actually surpassed her own, and she would become the one who was needing to be caught up.

“Oh, of course, it’s nothing.” The assistant laughs nervously, not fully being accustomed to praise from her new boss just yet.

“So, if you could pull one of the chairs in front of my desk around to the back to be next to me we can go ahead and get started on this. Although, I will be having to go back and forth between the taxation proposal and phone calls and dealing with the stack of letters containing pressing issues left behind by the previous Deputy Mayor.” Snow sighs as she sits down at her desk, beginning to sift through the piles of papers Gabrielle had written. Her assistant soon takes a seat beside her and begins helping her with the project, walking her through her notes and projections.

“So, since we don’t track the income of Fables living in the community, I had to take some liberties and estimates but attempted to stay as reasonable as possible and provided some room for overestimation in most of the projections. So according to the most recent census from ten years ago, 1984, there were 156 Fables living in the community and that most likely changed very little over the past decade since we haven’t received any refugees from the Homelands in over a century and people rarely leave from Fabletown. So I split the community up into eighths, where there are the few high paying jobs or people with leftover fortunes at the top, such as us in the Business Office or those in management positions at The Farm, such as Wayland Smith, and many of the witches and other residents of The Woodlands which are the top one eighth, then below that there are three-eighths of the community that make a decent amount of money but work in rather unfavorable circumstances, such as Holly or, well, me.” Gabrielle begins to explain her math and reasoning behind her plans. It slightly pained Snow to hear that only an eighth of the community was living in good conditions at a job that doesn’t test your morals, and it hurt her even more to hear that there were three times as many people living a nightmare.

“Then below that, there is another grouping of three-eighths which are people making minimum wage, often working at small Fable owned businesses or Mundy businesses. Then at the very bottom there is the final grouping of a single eighth of the community which is those making below what is minimum wage in the state of New York; these are typically people who are also working unfavorable jobs that aren’t going as well or a few jobless or those with on and off jobs.” Gabrielle finishes telling Snow her system for the classes of Fabletown. Although this was just the introduction to her explanation, one could already spot about a thousand flaws in the Fabletown community and system.

“What’s the average income for each of the brackets?” Snow asks, partially not wanting to hear the answer.

“Well, the top tier averages a yearly income of $20,000, the second a yearly income of $12,000, the third a yearly income of $9,000, and the bottom spanning from $4,000 to $8,000. The last was rather skewed because there were so many special circumstances. I think it would be best to do what the Mundies do and have each bracket pay a different percentage of their yearly income. For example, a person making $4,000 a year has a lot less to spare than someone making $20,000. I have also done all of my numbers based on the idea that each grouping will be paying different percentages. I have split up different additions or programs, if you will, and calculated what percentage of income would be needed to fund that program. So, for example, we would tax the top bracket 6% to keep the Fabletown business running independently and to provide welfare for the lowest bracket we would tax the top tier 4%, so if we wanted an independently functioning government and a welfare program we would be taxing the top 10%. There are also a few other additions that I calculated percentages for that we could add or tweak.” Gabrielle goes on, sounding remarkable intelligent, as she was, and slightly excited about the entire concept.

“Gabrielle, this is such a big help thank you so very much. What all programs have you calculated taxation percentages for?” Her boss praises her and attempts to uncover more wonderful ideas as she flips through the pages tucked inside the thin folder.

“Well, I have done independently functioning government, welfare, a separate form of welfare, I suppose, which is a shelter which provides food, an expansion of the Business Office and the Sheriff’s Department, an expansion of The Farm, and providing Glamours for Fables who need them.” She explains, all sounding delightful to Snow. They both wish that all could be put into place, but the tax rate would be ridiculously high and many would definitely refuse to pay. “I also thought that with some of the leftover tax money we could do more promotion for working with Mundies, which will become necessary for many in the near future, and possibly a Fabletown newspaper to inform citizens on what’s happening. I assume it would become somewhat of a necessity as well for tax rates and it could also help promote jobs and housing for those who are in need.” Gabrielle finishes off the run-through of all of her ideas, making Snow think of things that she most likely would have never even thought of.

“Gabrielle, this is wonderful.” She replies with a small sigh of awe at her new assistant’s brains and enthusiasm. “I’m trying to decide how we would choose which benefits should be put into place in the taxation program and I think it would be best if, when we vote on if we even can tax the Fables, it is the other Fables who decide what programs are chosen, don’t you think?”

Gabrielle takes a moment to think before responding. “Yes, I feel it best that the citizens get to choose what they are paying for, it would probably lessen the chances of revolt and refusal to pay if they are able to choose what they are paying for. However, I think that we in the Business Office, including Sheriff Wolf and King Cole, should decide if we fund the government functioning independently. The people would most likely vote against it since it’s the most expensive tax and it’s not benefiting them.” 

“I know it’s only your first week but you are absolutely amazing me so far.” Snow smiles, causing her assistant’s cheek to blush. “Well, I guess we should start planning on when we’re going to vote on the matter.”

***

“Is there anything else you need today?” Gabrielle asks Snow as she packs up her papers and tucks them away into various drawers and files on her desk.

“Nope, we’re all done. And thank you again for everything you’ve done, really, it helps out a lot.” Her boss replies as she pushes in her chair for the last time that day and goes to walk out of the Business Office, following right behind Gabrielle. It had become customary for the two to walk to the elevator together and share the trip up. However, they were cut short by a somewhat expected visitor.

“Oh, hello, Bigby. I haven’t seen you all day, but I assume that’s a rather good sign.” Snow greets the sheriff, slightly caught off guard.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Snow.” Gabrielle smiles, not quite sure what to do in the situation, before turning around and leaving.

“I guess so. I’ve been busy typing up reports from when Toad’s building burned down so it’s a good thing that there weren’t any calls today.” Bigby shrugs, placing his hands in his pockets. “Could we, uh, talk for a minute?” He asks, nodding his head towards the Business Office door. The question made Snow nervous. She didn’t like not knowing what was going on or what was about to happen, although she makes herself calmly respond “sure”.

The two turn around and walk into the Business Office, turning the lights back on and watching the room illuminate. “So, what’s going on?” 

“I wanted to talk to you about what happened the other night, at your apartment,” Bigby replies, not quite knowing how to address the situation and feeling rather uncomfortable about it. The question stirred up the exact same emotions in the woman he was speaking to.

“Wait.” She replies quickly with a sigh before turning around. “Bufkin!” Snow yells out into the massive office, waiting for an answer.

“Yes, Miss Snow?” Bufkin replies, flying down from the top of one of the many bookshelves.

“Bufkin, I need you to go find the second oldest book we have.” She says, attempting to think of a request that will take him a rather long time.

“Of course, I’ll be right back.” He smiles before flying away.

“Oh, please, take your time.” Snow sighs under her breath as she returns to her previous conversation. “What about it?” She asks, trying to avoid talking about how she felt about it as much as possible. It had been a long time since she had been emotionally open with anyone and, because of her past experiences, she was lenient to do it again.

“Well, I don’t even know what about it. I just feel like after something like that happens it would be nice to at least acknowledge it. I mean, I don’t know if I should be apologizing for kissing you or… or I don’t know what. I just want to make sure I didn’t mess anything up, that’s a bad habit of mine.” Bigby explains, feeling a rather confusing mixture of emotions; happy yet embarrassed and stressed and overall pretty confused.

A very similar whirlpool of feelings were swimming about in Snow’s brain. She too was very confused and it was one of the rare moments in her life where she had allowed herself to be vulnerable, and that twinge of helplessness was about to drive her mad. “I don’t quite know about it either. You definitely didn’t ruin anything it’s just-” She sighs, not even knowing what she’s saying. In the moment of silence, she discovers that she had been staring directly at the ground the entire time. She raised her eyes to meet Bigby’s and began to speak once more. “So much has happened in the past month with Faith, and the Crooked Man, and Crane where my life was just all scattered. As of right now, I’m trying to get everything back to normal and this just isn’t, well, normal.” Snow explains, feeling herself becoming slightly too open for her comfort. “What happened wasn’t bad or negative in any way, I only need some time and-”

“I found the book, Miss Snow. Should I set it on your desk?” Bufkin asks loudly as he comes swooping back into the room. Snow squeezes her eyes shut and sighs, annoyed by the intrusion before remembering that she had asked Bufkin to retrieve the book and return, so it wasn’t her place at all to be annoyed. Realizing her place and the effects of her decisions, most applicable being if it was okay or necessary for her to be annoyed or angry, was something she had been working on with her Mundy therapist recently, and it was feeling beneficial.

“Yes, Bufkin, that would be perfect.” Snow replies, turning her head over her shoulder to speak to him. “Don’t worry, I’m not abandoning the situation, I only need some time.” She says to Bigby before turning around to open the Business Office door. The two walk out for the final time and leave, taking an elevator ride in comfortable silence back up to their homes.


	6. Episode 1: Chapter 6

Two days later and Sheriff Bigby had finally finished writing his reports on the Woodsman’s destruction of Toad’s building. Not that the task was too difficult for the sheriff since most of it was spent being distracted or thinking too much, but it was easily his least favorite part of the job. Well, maybe not quite his least favorite. The heaviest and most nerve-racking part of catching criminals in Fabletown was deciding their punishment. No matter what you do, in someone’s eyes, you’re doing something wrong. You either let someone off too easy and you’re endangering everyone in town, or you punish someone too harshly and you’re a monster. Regardless of the emotional baggage, the new Deputy Mayor would most likely want to lead the discussion about the Woodsman’s fate, and the sheriff planned on letting her.

After getting up and leaving his office to head into Snow’s, he was blocked by a short line outside of the Business Office door. Holding his breath, Bigby walked past the two Fables and hoped he could enter unnoticed; Luckily, he succeeded. The atmosphere inside of the Business Office wasn’t as intense as he had prepared himself for. People were upset, sure, but nobody was angry or yelling. Bigby carefully paced over to Snow’s desk and waited to be invited into the conversation.

“How can I help you, Bigby?” Snow asks after the Fable she was speaking to leaves.

“It’s Woody’s case, I need you to come help me decide what to do with him.” He explains. Snow seemed to be ever so slightly relieved by the idea of getting a break from her typical meetings that filled her day.

“Alright, let’s go.” She sighs with a soft smile, standing up from her desk and beginning to follow the sheriff out. “Oh, um, Gabrielle, can you meet with the next few people while I’m gone?” Snow asks from across the room, prompting Gabrielle to respond with a small nod. The two walk in silence until they get back to the privacy of the sheriff’s office.

“So, I don’t think it very necessary to hold a trial for Woody since almost everybody in Fabletown knows and most likely agrees that he started the fire by now, so my idea is that we just keep him in the cells. He’s too incompetent to escape and he’s no real threat unless he’s out by himself.” Bigby explains his ideas about how to handle the matter.

“Okay, I’m fine with just holding him but we do still need to have a proper trial. It’s our rules and it’s there for a reason. I don’t want to start ignoring rules because they aren’t necessary at the time because we may end up accidentally ignoring them when they are needed.” Snow suggests. Bigby knows she has a point but he doesn’t like it. To him, a trial is just a waste of time.

“Alright, when do you want to hold it?” Bigby asks, leaning against his desk.

“We can do it sometime this week, it won’t take more than ten minutes. We just need to get a time when everyone who witnessed the fire is free. Maybe we can do it on the weekend if that’s easiest.” Snow suggests. Agreeing with the proposal, Bigby nods before leaving his office with Snow and returning to the Business Office.

Upon entering the office, there is a strange looking woman sitting in Snow’s chair with her feet kicked up on the desk. Her dirty black combat boots seem to go with her messy, short red hair and her torn, tight fitting shirt with a rose emblem right in the center. Bigby doesn’t recognize her, but Snow seems to know exactly who she is. After hearing the door shut, the mysterious girl turns to face the sheriff and Deputy Mayor.

“Hey sis, you miss me?” She asks, slinging her feet off the desk and walking over towards Snow. Snow’s jaw drops as she stares at Rose. Having not seen her in over two centuries, she was hardly able to recognize her with her hair cut short and her distressed and lousy clothing. Snow turns to Gabrielle for some sort of explanation, her mouth still agape, and Gabrielle is quick to respond, partially out of fear of getting in trouble to allowing Rose to enter.

“She, um, walked in and asked where you were. I said that you would be here shortly.” Gabrielle explains, her words coming quickly due to a mixture of fear and anxiety.

“Rose, I- why are you here?” Snow asks as she walks over to Rose, her voice hushed. Knowing her sister, she may make a scene in the Business Office which Snow was quick to attempt to avoid. The last time the two women had spoken was when Rose had an affair with Prince Charming, Snow’s husband at the time, so fearing an argument was very valid in Snow’s mind.

“What, aren’t you excited to see your sister?” Rose asks, opening up her arms as if about to hug Snow. Rose wraps her arms around her sister, but the gesture isn’t reciprocated.

“Seriously, why are you here? Not to be too rude, but, I wasn’t having any problems with our estranged relationship.” The Deputy Mayor says under her breath, attempting to keep the sisterly feud between the two sisters. There was a strange mixture of emotions stirring about inside Snow. She didn’t want to come off as rude and reject her sister completely from the moment she saw her again, but she knew that if she stayed around Rose, she would most likely end up having a large negative effect on Snow with her toxic personality and careless ways.

“Well, the bar that I used to work at fired me for missing a lot of work so I sorta got fired and am in need of some, uh, financial assistance.” Rose laughs, showing off her recklessness to Bigby and Gabrielle, who had never met her before.

“And you came here because you expect me to help you?” Snow asks, upset because she knows that if she gives Rose help, Rose with end up depending on her and draining her life, but her conscience won’t allow her to say no to her desperate sister, no matter how terrible she is.

“Maybe… I also thought it would be easier here, living with a bunch of other Fables rather than with a bunch of Mundies.” Rose shrugs, tilting her chair onto its back two legs.

“Well,” Snow remarks in an angry voice as she pushes down the armrests to get the chair to rest firmly back down on the ground. “Trust me, it’s not.” Snow opens her desk drawer and pulls out her purse. After digging for a minute, she hands Rose a ring full of keys. “Here, the gold one is the key to my apartment. The apartment number is at the top of it. Please just go up there and I’ll be there soon, and try your hardest to not steal or break anything.” She sighs, running her hands through her hair. “Gabrielle, could you have the rest of the people outside come in and write own their names and a time for a meeting tomorrow morning. Make every appointment thirty minutes and schedule them so we can do two at a time, please.”

Gabrielle nods and Snow thanks her once more for all of her help. Snow quickly walks out of the Business Office and into the Sheriff’s office, Bigby following behind her. “Do you need something?” Bigby asks as he sees Snow walk into his office, confused as to why she would be coming back.

“A break, that’s what I need.” She sighs as she sits down in one of the chairs by the desk. “It’s so like Rose to just come barge into my life like this. I know she’s going to mess something up I just know it.” Snow pauses for a minute after speaking, rubbing her forehead out of stress. The sheriff remains silent, feeling that it wasn’t yet time for him to speak up. “Whatever, I’ll just take care of it.”

“You know that you don’t have to take care of it, right? Rose is grown up, she should be able to take care of herself by now, it’s not your fault that she can’t.” Bigby explains, trying to calm Snow down. She always overworked herself, work seemed to almost be the only thing she did. She needs a break and she deserves one, not this.

“I can’t just do that, and you know me well enough to know that I won’t.” Snow sighs, fully revealing the dilemma that she was facing. “My conscience won’t let me just not help her, I would feel terrible. I’d rather be annoyed for a few days than feel guilty for years if something bad were to happen to Rose because I wouldn’t let her stay with me.” She sighs before looking back up at Bigby. “But it doesn’t matter, I don’t need to bother you with my silly troubles.” Snow apologizes, standing up and going to head towards the door after realizing how much she had said and revealed.

“Snow, wait-” Bigby says, grabbing a hold of her arm to stop her from leaving. Snow pauses, closing her eyes out of embarrassment after realizing how strange what she had just done was. “Don’t apologize, I get how troublesome it can be. If you ever need someone to complain to, you know where I live.” He reassures her, attempting to not sound too serious or emotional.

“Thank you, I will most likely be abusing that offer by the end of the week.” Snow laughs before leaving the office and returning to her apartment to make sure her sister hasn’t done too much damage to anything yet.

After walking up several flights of stairs, Snow swings open her apartment door to reveal her still clean home. Scanning the room, her eyes land on the couch where she finds her sister with her legs kicked up with Peter sitting on her lap. “Hello, Rose.” Snow sighs as she places her purse down on the kitchen counter. She kicks off her short, blue heels before heading into her living room to sit down beside Rose.

“Hey, Snow, I didn’t know you had a pet rabbit.” Rose smiles as Peter jumps down from her lap and hops back into his room.

“I see you took the liberty of letting him out of his cage before asking me.” Snow replies, a passive-aggressive sting in her voice. Rose rolls her eyes at Snow’s overreaction.

“Oh, please, he’s just a little bunny. What harm could he do?” She asks, sitting up on the couch and slouching into the backboard.

“You’d be surprised.” Snow sighs, thinking of the things Peter has destroyed. “Anyway, why are you really here? I thought you’d think Fabletown was too boring with your annoying old sister running it.” She says, mocking Rose.

“First of all, I’m the older one so you can’t say that. And second, I’m here because I need some help. It’s the same as I said in your office.” Rose explains.

“Really? I thought you were just saying that because you didn’t want others to know your business. I figured you escaped to here after robbing a Mundy bank or something to hide within the Fabletown protection spells.” Snow replies, taking every jab that she can at her sister’s loose-moraled ways. Rose showed up out of nowhere, breaking Snow’s plan to stay away from her, and expected money, food, and a home from her sister. The least Snow could do to get back at her was to make fun of her a little bit.

“Nah, if that was the case I would have just said so.” Rose shrugs, standing up from the couch and beginning to pace around the room.

“Well, I should have assumed as much, it’s as if you were born without the capability to feel embarrassment.” Snow says, shuddering at the memory of all the times Rose had embarrassed her as well.

“But now that you mention it, do you think these protection spells are strong enough to keep the Mundy cops off of me if I did, say, rob a bank?” Rose laughs, turning back around to face Snow, holding a vase that she found on one of the many bookshelves.

“Rose I swear to God if you try that I will throw you down the witching well.” Snow snaps, jolting up from her seat on the couch.

“Ooh, you’ve gotten more feisty. Do you keep any food around here?” Rose smiles, proud of her mischief, as she saunters into the kitchen to open up the fridge.

“Eat what you want, just please don’t mess anything up. This apartment is a two bedroom and the other room is Peter’s playroom so you’re either going to be sleeping on the couch or sleeping on the floor with a rabbit- it’s your pick.” Snow sighs, ending their conversation so she can make an escape to her bedroom.

“You dedicated an entire room to your bunny?” Rose asks, shocked at her sister’s obsession with her pet.

“Yes, and if anything happens to him because of you, we can skip the witching well altogether, I’ll just go ahead and kill you myself!” Snow snaps, showing off her momma-bear love and strength.

“Jeez, put the claws away. Hey, is this chocolate icing in her for anything special?” Rose asks, pulling a small container out of the fridge.

“Yes, actually, I was going to make a cake this weekend.” Snow replies as Rose completely ignores her, tearing off the lid and grabbing a spoon.

“Oh well, it’s mine now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise! Rose Red is in town and probably going to mess stuff up. stay tuned for episode 2!! this book will become much more of a criminal investigation thing, like the game


	7. Episode 2: Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> here come the emotions and the main plot (In the next chapter)!!

“So, Selena, I know you’ve been dodging this past experience for our last few sessions as we’ve been discussing how the effects of it have become more prevalent in your life, and I think it would be beneficial to discuss what this mentioned event is. All of the information I have on this occurrence is that it affected you very deeply and it made you begin to worry about trust and secrets.” Dr. Hythe says to Snow as she leans forward in her large cushioned chair. Snow was known by her therapist as Selena since it was her go-to Mundy name because it would give her the same first initial. This aforementioned “past experience”, as Dr. Hythe likes to call it, was the Crane incident. Much to Snow’s dismay, she knew that if she wanted to move forward as a person and not be held back by mistrust and trauma, she needed to talk about it. If she couldn’t benefit from talking about the situation, she should at least get some of her emotions off of her chest to keep things from bottling up too much.

“Yes, I know, I just really don’t want to and I don’t know if I… if I’m strong enough to speak about it.” Snow replies. The first struggle with speaking about her deep feelings was admitting that she wasn’t quite strong enough to do so.

“That’s alright, I just want to try to see how far we can get.” The doctor reassures her, making Snow feel a little bit more comfortable with speaking.

“Well, um, I recently found out some awful things about a man I have worked with for a very, very long time. I discovered, through a close friend of mine who had stumbled upon a collection of pictures, that this man, who was actually my boss, had been…” Snow trails off, hating the thought of having to say the next necessary words. “That, um, that he had been hiring prostitutes and dressing them as me while he reenacted events that have happened in my life and, well, had sex with them.” She explains, struggling through her words.

Dr. Hythe sat in shock for a moment, never having heard anything like this in her life. “And you know for a fact that this is true, that your boss had actually done this?” The doctor asks, probably just making sure that Snow wasn’t jumping to wild conclusions or experiencing delusions.

“Yes, I confronted my boss and he said it was all true.” Snow replies, feeling tears well up, causing her voice to crack and falter. “It’s just… it’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever even heard. Thinking about it makes me feel like I want to just crawl out of my skin, like I’m filthy in a way that I can’t wash off.”

“That’s a similar emotion that many rape victims feel. Although this isn’t a case of sexual assault, it can spur many of the same emotions such as helplessness or feelings of deep impurity which can cause you to wish to isolate yourself. I want to try to make sure you don’t feel the urge to isolate yourself since that is highly dangerous.” Dr. Hythe explains. Snow already knows most of what she’s saying, but she does wish to keep talking about the subject because assistance on preventing emotional isolation would be very helpful for her. “Now I know from our previous meetings that you tend to not share your emotions with almost anyone around you, is that still true?”

“Yes, it makes me feel vulnerable and I don’t like that.” Snow replies. As much as she wanted to get better and grow, she hated talking about her refusal to share emotions with other people in her life, it was the thing she was most stubborn about.

“Selena, I want you to realize that allowing yourself to be emotionally open doesn’t always mean vulnerability. Most times, it leads to closer relationships, stronger bonds, and a drastic increase in the trust you have in those around you. I know that you have been very unfortunate when it comes to the people that fall into your life but that doesn’t mean that everyone is going to hurt you. Is there anyone who you think you may be able to start being emotionally open with, possibly the friend who informed you about what your boss had been doing?”

Completely unintended, Dr. Hythe brought up a very strange and sensitive topic: Snow’s relationship with Bigby. Snow always wished to tell her therapist as much as possible, but she didn’t really know what to say about Bigby. She had avoided thinking about the subject too much and decided to let their relationship roam and see where it would go. Snow knew that if she thought too much about Bigby, she would end up going down a dangerous path of fear of relationship and mistrust and end up trying to avoid him. Snow takes a deep breath and sighs before beginning her explanation.

“Well, about that, I’ve been trying to do so recently. His name is Bigby and we’ve been rather close for quite some time. Obviously, I have a few girlfriends I talk with and am close with but, you see, I work with Bigby and I work a lot so I’m around him very often and he is there to help me out with a lot of stuff by default since we work in very similar departments.” Snow explains, trying to avoid talking about specifics about work. The name Bigby wasn’t too absurd by Mundy standards, so she went ahead and said his real name to keep things simple.

“Now, this man, are you just friends with him or is this more of a romantic relationship?” Dr. Hythe asks, the one question Snow had been attempting to avoid but it had become inevitable.

“Well, we have kissed before and over the past few years I have begun to notice wishes for a romantic relationship with him become more prevalent in my mind, it’s just that I’m sort of confused and cautious due to previous instances.” Snow explains, realizing how little she knows about her own relationship with Bigby and what she wants out of it as she speaks.

“Okay, okay, this is good. Romantic relationships can be extremely beneficial for people since they provide love, security, and support so I am proud of you for being willing to consider entering a romantic relationship with this man. However, you being cautious about relationships, could you tell me more about that?” The doctor asks, and her timing couldn’t be more perfect with Rose recently coming back into Snow’s life.

“Well, I know that I’ve mentioned my last husband cheating on me, but the full story is that I caught him sleeping with my sister, Rose. After that incident, Rose and I became estranged but she has recently come back into my life, although that isn’t really important in this discussion. It just that, with him cheating on me, I’ve become cautious with who I give my trust to and who I enter relationships with.” Snow explains. Her being cautious with romance wasn’t as big of a deal or as intense as her being emotionally blocked off from those around her, so she doesn’t have too much to say about it.

“Now, this new man in your life, has he ever gone behind you and done something that you disapprove of or broken trust that you’ve given him?” Dr. Hythe asks. It takes Snow a moment to think of a response, because, as she racks her brain, she can’t remember Bigby ever lying to her or breaking her trust. He’s done plenty of things she disapproves of, sure, but they tended to be work-related and rather unimportant.

“I don’t think he’s ever lied to me, but there are some things about him that sort of, um, scare me.” Snow explains, trying to choose the right wording and not make Bigby sound bad.

“What do you mean by scare you?” Snow’s therapist asks, unsurprisingly, since it would be slightly concerning to hear a patient say a potential love interest scares them.

“He has a rather small temper and doesn’t mind getting into physical altercations if need be.”

“Now, has he ever lost his temper easily with you or gotten physical with you?” Dr. Hythe asks, being misdirected by Snow’s explanation.

“Oh, God no. If he ever hit me or constantly snapped at me I would have just left, I’m not stupid. It’s just…” Snow struggles to think of how to describe Bigby’s eagerness to fight other than by flat out saying that he’s the sheriff in our illegal, hidden, and secret community. “Say, if someone was doing something illegal such as hitting their girlfriend, he would have no trouble jumping in to separate him from her and get physical with the boyfriend if he had to.” She explains, giving the best example that she can

“Okay, I see what you’re saying, but just to clarify before I say what I’m about to say next, he would never just go out in an attempt to start a fight to hit or punch someone?” Dr. Hythe asks, obviously being careful with what advice she gives on this tricky subject.

“No.” Snow laughs, knowing that Bigby wouldn’t do something unnecessary like that. Probably.

“It seems that he may be nice to have around to protect you.” Dr. Hythe comments, possibly trying to stir up a little woman-to-woman conversation.

“I don’t need protecting.” Snow scoffs, softly rolling her eyes. Dr. Hythe feels slightly embarrassed but continues with her advice.

“Okay, well, if he’s never been violent towards you, never lied to you, never broken your trust, he has your back when people wrong you, you already have an emotional connection with him and a well understanding of his character, and you think being with him would make you happy, then what are you avoiding and waiting for?” Dr. Hythe asks, a question Snow wasn’t prepared to hear. What was she waiting for? “Now, I’m not trying to tell you how to rule your life, I’m just giving my own personal advice, please keep that in mind. It just seems that you beat yourself up a lot and don’t allow yourself to be happy because you think it’s selfish, but I want you to do something for yourself; entering a relationship may be a good thing to do for you. But, I will say, most good relationships come from a sturdy foundation. I would recommend opening up with this man a little bit more and forming a tighter friendship bond before attempting to further the relationship. It just tends to help out a lot with the emotional aspect.” 

“Huh, I’ve never thought about it like that.” Snow responds, still trying to process all that was just said to her. She slumps back in the couch she’s sitting on, no longer caring about her appearance or posture since she’s so far deep in thought.

“I always recommend taking a step back from every situation to examine things. It almost always helps tremendously. Now, I challenge you to be more open with those around you and become okay with the idea of not being in control of things. I know you’ve said previously that you attempt to prevent bad things from happening by controlling all that you can around you, but just remember to take a break every once in a while.” Dr. Hythe says as she stands up from her seat, a signal for Snow to do the same. “Well, I’ll see you next month. Goodbye, Selena.” Snow’s therapist smiles, ushering her out of the office door.

Snow decided to take Dr. Hythe’s advice and open up a little bit more with Bigby. While her emotions were fresh in her mind, she decided to do so now. Snow trails out into the parking lot, sighing at the July heat before climbing into her car and driving back to the Woodlands. 

After arriving, she enters the front doors of the building, ignoring Grimble sleeping behind the desk, and takes the stairs up to the second floor. Snow walks down the hall, feeling herself getting nervous as she reaches Bigby’s apartment. Stalling, she looks out the window and squints at the bright neon pink and purple lights of Bullfinch Street contrasting the darkening evening sky. She silently prays that he’s home before taking a deep breath and knocking on the door.

“Oh, Snow, what’s going on?” Bigby asks as he calmly opens the door, completely oblivious to the swirl of anxiety going through Snow’s mind. She stares at him for a moment, losing focus as if she was staring at nothing at all. Suddenly, all of the fear and anxiety that had welled up inside of Snow melted away when Bigby came into her sight. She felt a strange, new sense of warmth, familiarity, and safety, as if her heart had just turned to honey. “Is everything okay, you look sort of… dissociated.” Bigby says softly, confused as to why Snow was looking at him the way that she was.

Overcome with a strange sense of happiness as Snow thinks about all of the good memories, the support, and the love that could come from this relationship, she smiles widely before wrapping her arms around Bigby’s torso and pulling him into a hug. Shocked by this gesture, which had never occurred before, it took Bigby a moment to process what was happening before he relaxed and hugged Snow back.

“Snow, what’s going on. Is everything alright?” He asks, still extremely confused. Snow steps away from Bigby before looking back up at him with a wide smile laced across her face.

“Everything’s perfect, I- I think I’m ready.” She replies, her cheeks beginning to hurt from smiling so wide but she didn’t mind.

“Ready for what?” Bigby questions her, knitting his eyebrows together as he looks down at the woman loosely wrapped in his arms. Snow stood up on her toes and rested her hands on Bigby’s shoulders as she kissed him softly.

It finally snapped in Bigby’s head. A relationship. She had decided that she was ready for a relationship with him. After over three hundred years of being built up, Snow’s walls had finally been cracked.


	8. Episode 2: Chapter 2

“Holly, what the hell are you doing here?” Gren asks as Holly rushes past him in the line outside of the Business Office. Her face was in a cold stare and she was fuming.

“Not now, Gren.” She responds, swinging open the office door, completely ignoring the line. “Snow, I need to talk with you, now,” Holly yells, firmly standing her ground right by the door. Typically, an act like this would have enraged Snow, but she could see the panic and anger in Holly’s eyes and becomes very nervous.

“Gabrielle, would you please finish up this meeting with Tim?” Snow requests, but she means it as more of a demand. Gabrielle looks up from her papers and nods quickly before coming to sit in Snow’s seat, not wanting Tim to have to walk with his bad leg. “Holly, what’s going on?” Snow asks, her voice hushed as she scurries up to Holly.

“Follow me,” Holly instructs, her teeth clenched out of anger. Snow follows Holly back out of the Business Office and into Bigby’s office.

“Holly, what are we-” Snow begins to ask once more but Holly interrupts her.

“I need you two to come back to the bar with me, now,” Holly demands, causing Bigby to rise from his seat.

“We need to know what happened first.” Snow replies, beginning to lose her patient as nervousness and replace those feelings with annoyance.

“Someone broke into the bar last night and robbed the place, but that’ just the start.” Holly briefly explains, rushing the two down the hall and out of the Woodlands. Not having the patience to wait for a cab, Holly hurries down the streets of Fabletown with the Sheriff and Deputy Mayor following close behind her.

“Snow, what happened?” Bigby asks, keeping his voice down so that Holly can’t hear. Not that she would be paying attention in this blind rage of hers, but if she did happen to hear she would most likely begin to yell once more.

“I don’t know, she just barged into the Business Office and now we’re here.” Snow shrugs, noticing that her feet are beginning to hurt from walking so quickly in her heel. The three approach the Trip Trap and walk down the short flight of stairs to the entrance. Snow and Bigby grow nervous as Holly reaches forward to open the door and reveal what heinous act had occurred in the bar.

The three enter the bar and see every item in the room completely burned, and almost turned to ash. However, the floor and walls were barely scorched.

“Look at this shit. This is a bar, it’s full of alcohol. If the fire had spread too much, I would have been burned alive. I think someone tried to kill me.” Holly explains, still furious.

“Holly, I doubt that this was an attempted murder.” Bigby sighs, having already partially pieced together what happened here.

“And why the hell is that!” Holly snaps, taking offense to his underreaction to the situation as if he were making fun of Holly’s concern and anger.

“Well, it’s obvious someone didn’t just get a fire going and then leave. Look at what is burned and what isn’t. I’m assuming that whoever did this set individual items in the room on fire and then put it out before it spread to the flooring and walls.” Bigby explains, showing how the fire that had once engulfed the pool table ended halfway down the wooden legs. “If the whole place was supposed to burn, the floor most likely would have been the first thing to catch fire, and it’s completely fine.” He points out.

“What kinda freak would do something like that?” Holly asks, leaning her back against the wall behind her.

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Bigby replies, beginning to pace around the room and examine the damage. The blackened chairs and tables strikingly contrasted the light and barely charred wooden floors and wallpaper.

“Holly, don’t you have smoke detectors here?” Snow asks, thinking it suspicious that no alarms went off while the place was burning. She assumed that smoke detectors would have been a rather high priority since the entire building was a fire hazard.

“Yeah, it’s right there behind the bar,” Holly replies, pointing to the small white circle on the ceiling. “It never went off, though.” She shrugs, anger in her voice. If it had been set off, she would have saved a lot of money getting the furniture replaced and whoever did this probably would have been caught.

“Had it been working before?” Snow asks, walking over to the detector. 

“I’m pretty sure. It wasn’t time to replace the batteries yet.” Holly replies, walking over towards Snow, who had grabbed a scorched stool and climbed upon it to reach the detector. Bigby, whose attention had been gained by this action, went to stand by Holly.

“The wires have been cut.” The Deputy Mayor points out, opening up the detector to see the insides, revealing an empty battery slot and a plethora of wires that have all been cut in half. “I guess whoever came in to set the place on fire wanted to be as sneaky and stealthy as possible, not wanting the damage to be discovered until after he had left.” She explains, hopping down from the stool.

“So we can definitely rule out assault and any accidents, seen as the detector was cut on purpose and the flames weren’t meant to harm anyone physically,” Bigby concludes, still foggy about the reasoning for someone to set the place ablaze.

“Wait, this place is in the weaker spots of the Fabletown protection spells and there is a large amount of Mundies around here, right?” Snow asks Holly, probably to prove a suspicion of hers but neither Bigby nor Holly knows what she’s suggesting.

“Yes, there are a lot of Mundies and it’s because the protection spell is weak.”

“Do you think, maybe, this was just some Mundy teenagers or something just being, I don’t know, rebellious?” Snow suggests, throwing ideas out since no obvious leads had appeared.

“I don’t know, Snow, this seems pretty deliberate. Also, I doubt that if this was just some kids that they would care to put out the fires. Even then, this seems pretty intense to be something that is done just for fun.” Bigby explains, rejecting Snow’s idea.

“Well then, it seems that since just individual items were lit, most likely one at a time, this may have been some pyromaniac wanting to watch the things burn. A bar would have been an easy target for a pyromaniac since the place is basically stocked with a sort of lighter fluid.” Snow replies, giving a reasonable and probable scenario. Although, the high possibility of this being an attack by a pyromaniac was worrisome. If a person was this obsessed with fire, what was going to stop them from burning on a larger and more extreme scale? Luckily, Bigby had an observation that would calm this worry.

“I agree that it could have been a serious pyromaniac, but they clearly aren’t totally insane or engulfed in this obsession.” He comments, still slowly pacing around the room.

“What do you mean?” Snow asks. She and Holly had taken a standing near the hallway entrance to the bar, having seen everything they needed or wanted to see.

“Look at the place, it’s not completely burned down. They had the self-control to stop the burning before it reached the foundations of the room.” Bigby explains, referencing the theory that items were burned individually and the fact that only furniture was burned. “They were also sane enough to cut the wires of the smoke detector before beginning to burn the place.”

“Or insane enough to cut the wires.” Snow replies, growing doubts about what Bigby was proposing. Bigby gives her a confused look, prompting her to continue to explain. “Whoever did this clearly thought it out. They must have come with a blade to cut the wires and the matches to light the furniture. This was most likely a premeditated attack, therefore someone had the idea to come set this place ablaze and it never occurred to them to not do it.”

“You’re right.” Bigby sighs, becoming stressed at how many possibilities there were as to why this was done and what type of person did it. “Holly, Snow and I will go back to the Business Office and do as much as we can do figure out who did this. We’ll keep you updated.” Bigby informs Holly as he begins to leave the room, Snow by his side.

“You’d better,” Holly replies bitterly, still incredibly angry about what had happened to her bar.

“God, what a mess.” Snow sighs as she and Bigby begin their walk back to the Woodlands. She runs her fingers through her hair as she contemplates the situation and considers all the crazy possibilities.

Walking down the beaten down and dirty streets of Fabletown, Snow takes the opportunity to fully observe her surrounding and look at what has been built around her. She spends so much time in the Woodlands with other wealthy residents, it’s hard to try to put yourself in the eyes of a less well-off citizen. Some of their lives and circumstances were so unfavorable, it was easiest to just try to ignore it, not wanting to have to deal with the fact this is the life that you helped create for them. Something had to be changed, and now that Snow was in power, she intended to do just that.

As she and Bigby approach the Woodlands once more, the memory of the conversation she held with him the previous night floats back into her mind. “So, um, about what I said the other day…” Snow begins, wondering where she was going to go with this conversation.

“Huh, I was wondering when you were going to bring that up,” Bigby replies with a slight chuckle. “Did you mean it, or are you having second thoughts?” He asks, secretly not wanting to know the answer. He had been waiting for her to open up and stop shutting him out for decades, and now that she finally has and he’s ecstatic, she may be changing her mind. It was so frustrating for him to watch her be in pain but not accept any help or comfort from others, although saddening too once he reminded himself why she wouldn’t let people in. Snow had been through so much pain and abuse in the past and he wanted to be able to help her grow and get through it, but whenever he attempted to speak about it, it always came out wrong. Constantly being told that he was a vicious monster didn’t quite do wonders for Bigby’s self-image and mentality, either. Being with Snow, in his mind, was going to be the thing that would fix that for him as well. Being able to help her was supposed to help him find his purpose, give him something to do where he could be the good guy. Well, all that may be going out the door right now.

“I meant it, it’s just… when I spoke I had forgotten how much this job is to handle.” Snow begins, pausing outside the front door of the apartment building to continue speaking to Bigby. “It’s a lot so please just be lenient with me these next few weeks, it’s been so long since I’ve been in any sort of relationship that it feels like I’m doing it for the first time again. But, my feelings towards you are the exact same, and please don’t ever doubt them.” She reminds Bigby, not wanting him to feel rejected. She knew that she still was romantically interested in him, but she was constantly so exhausted from work that she didn’t want to end up hurting or disappointing him by acting very differently outside of work.

Back in the real world and outside of Snow’s thoughts, she looked over at Bigby and saw him nodding calmly. “Thank you, Snow. We need to get back to working and figuring out who burned Holly’s place, but can we talk a little bit more after the Business Office closes today?” Bigby asks, reaching forward to open the door.

“Of course, and thank you for understanding.” She replies, following him inside and up into the Business Office. Upon arrival, they notice an absence of people waiting outside. Both confused, they enter to see Gabrielle sitting by herself at her desk, flipping through the pages an old, leather-bound book. When she hears the office door open she pops out of her chair and walks over to Snow.

“Hello, Miss White, Sheriff.” Gabrielle smiles, tucking a stray piece of blonde hair behind her ear and straightening out the skirt of her flared purple dress. “While you two were gone I was able to get through all of the appointments for this morning, nobody is scheduled for the rest of the day either and the walk-ups recently have been few and far between.” Gabrielle comments, clearly happy for this day of peace at the office.

“That’s wonderful, Gabrielle, thank you so much.” Snow smiles brightly, letting out a sigh of relief. “Um, would you happen to know where Bufkin is?”

“Right here, Miss Snow,” Bufkin calls out, flying down from having been asleep atop a cabinet in the office. Stumbling, either from being tired, drunk, or both, Bufkin lands on Snow’s desk and looks up to her for instruction.

“Bufkin, I need you to get all of the criminal records from the Homelands.” Snow informs him, and he looks slightly taken aback. All of those records will have easily filled up about ten or so heavy books. “Oh, and the book with all of the residents of Fabletown.”

“O-Of course Miss Snow, but it may take me a moment,” Bufkin replies, mustering a very forced smile before flying off into the library.

I’ll go get my criminal records of everything that’s happened while we’ve been here in New York.” Bigby says before leaving the Business Office and heading into his own office.

“So, Gabrielle, how have you been today?” Snow asks, her voice clearly showing how tired she was, although she attempted to hide it. Sitting down at her desk, Snow rubs her temples in an attempt to relieve some of the piled on stress.

“I’m doing just fine today, how are you?” Gabrielle responds with a warm smile. Snow pauses for a moment, looking up at Gabrielle as she is overcome with a feeling of thankfulness and gratitude as she thinks about how much Gabrielle has done for the Business Office so far. Not only being such a big help with the Fables, but also bringing a kind and enjoyable feeling back into the room. 

“Not the best, apparently someone broke into Holly’s bar and burned half the place. However, getting to see you has definitely made things much easier.” Snow responds, reciprocating the smile.

“Alright, I have all of the criminal records of every Fabletown citizen since 1750,” Bigby exclaims, entering the Business Office with a large stack of files in his hands.

“Here, let me help you.” Snow replies, rushing over and taking half of the stack into her hands and setting them down on her desk. Gabrielle stood once more and gathered around the records. 

“Look for anything about fires, arson, that sort of thing,” Bigby instructs and the team begins to sift through the files.

“Well, here’s the Woodsman’s for burning down Toad’s building but I’m pretty sure we can cross him off the list since he’s been in jail here for about a month and he’s too dumb to escape.” Snow says, tossing the Woodsman’s rather lengthy file to the side. Bufkin soon returns with the files from the Homelands and Gabrielle is sent to find the records of all Fabletown citizens and search for crimes involving fire.

The team searches for well over two hours and is unable to find any Fabletown citizen with a history of arson or fire-related crimes that wasn’t accidental. “God, I can’t believe nobody here has a history with fire.” Snow sighs, flipping a large book shut, causing a thud to echo throughout the room.

“It’s okay, we’ll find who did this,” Bigby tells Snow, placing an assuring hand on her shoulder, catching the attention and confusion of Gabrielle.

“I hope nothing like this ever happens again.”


	9. Episode 2: Chapter 3

“Thank you for coming to check up on me. I appreciate it Bigby, I do, but in the meantime there’s nothing you can do other than have the Business Office help me out with getting all this shit replaced and finding whoever made this mess.” Holly sighs as she glances around her still burned bar, having answered this question a few times. Bigby had come back to the bar every day since the attack to try to see if Holly had any new information and, having come back three times to discover nothing, had decided to make this trip his last. “I told you about Rumplestiltskin and you said he was clean, I don’t have any real enemies other than him.”

“Alright, thanks, Holly. We’re still doing everything that we can and are really close to finding who did this.” Bigby replies, putting out his cigarette right before lighting another.

“I’ll believe that when you have whoever did this behind bars.” Holly snaps, forcing Bigby to bite his tongue. There’s only so much a team of three can do, but yelling wouldn’t make things any better.

“I’ll call you when we get any updates. Thank you for your time.” Bigby forces himself to calmly reply before leaving the Trip Trap and beginning his walk back to the Woodlands. It would have been easy enough to call a cab, but Bigby thought that he could enjoy the relative peacefulness of the weekday night.

As he turned the corner onto Bullfinch street and saw the Woodlands reveal itself in the distance, the sound of a struggle became apparent to the Sheriff somewhere nearby. After following his keen ears, the wolf found himself standing before an alleyway, dimly lit by a streetlight. Cautious due to the darkness, he slowly stepped into the alley before abruptly stopping at the sound of flesh being pierced and the muffled scream of a woman. Losing all of his fear at the sound of someone in pain, Bigby begins to rush down the alley and almost immediately runs into a man clothed in all black with a mask pulled over his head. Grasping the moment with the Sheriff taken aback, the man in black runs out of the alley.

Bigby hesitates a moment more deciding if he should go after the man or see who was in the alley; after all, there was the slight possibility of this being a Mundy affair. Giving into his concern and worry, he rushes down to the dark end of the alley and follows the strong scent of blood. With his eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness, Bigby is able to make out the outline of a woman with a small frame and short hair lying on the ground and resting against the wall. His eyes also quickly divert to the reflective shard of a mirror rested on the ground next to her, soaked in blood.

“Who are you? What happened?” He asks, his voice moving quickly as his heart begins to beat much faster. His eyes fall down to the woman’s stomach which she covered with her blood-soaked hands. Her application of pressure wasn’t doing much good since blood was still gushing out in between her fingers.

Recognizing the Sheriff’s voice and knowing that he was a Fable too, she answered without hesitation. “My name is Rapunzel. H-he pulled me off the street and stabbed me.” She says, moving her hands to look down at her blood-soaked wound, revealing a massive slice down the left half of her torso, almost bigger than the wound Georgie died from a few weeks ago.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to take you back to the Woodlands and get Dr. Swineheart. You’re going to be alright.” Bigby reassures her as she slips in and out of consciousness. He slides his arms under her knees and behind her shoulders, allowing him to pick her up and carry her back to the Woodlands. As he rushes down the street, the Sheriff feels the hot summer air surround him and hears his heartbeat echoing in his skull. After pushing open the gate to the brick and iron fencing around the Woodlands with his back, Bigby hurries through the small garden before entering the lobby of the Woodlands.

“Grimble!” He yells, waking the security officer as he lays down Rapunzel on one of the red couches. Grimble fills with worry and shock as he lays his eyes upon the wounded woman. Another Fable can’t really be dead he thought to himself. “Go get Snow- now,” Bigby commands, causing the officer to bolt over to the stairs and begin to run up them.

“I’m gonna call Dr. Swineheart, I’ll be right back. You’re going to be okay.” Bigby says, ignoring the fact that Rapunzel can’t hear her. Perhaps, he thought as he ran over to the phone behind Grimble’s desk, he was saying it for himself. The Sheriff couldn’t handle another Fable dying, and he seriously doubted that the rest of the town could either. After calling the Knights of Malta hospital, Bigby waits impatiently for the doctor to answer.

“This is the Knights of Malta hospital, how may I help you?” A female receptionist voice says through the phone.

“I need to speak with Dr. Swineheart, now,” Bigby replies, on edge because of the dying Fable in the lobby of his apartment building.

“What happened this time, Bigby?” Swineheart says, sarcasm and annoyance potent in his voice.

“Come to the Woodlands. I just found a Fable, Rapunzel, in an alleyway with her stomach half cut open.” Bigby yells, reciprocating the feeling of annoyance at the doctor’s comment. Before responding, Dr. Swineheart hangs up and prepares to rush over to the Woodlands. As Bigby places the phone down, he hears two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs. Snow, soon followed by Grimble, emerges from the hallway and rushes over to the couch. Clearly having just woken up, as shown through her let down hair and pajamas, Snow sits down on the floor before Rapunzel and looks at her wound. Snow pulls away just seconds later, shocked and disgusted by the gruesome wound. As Bigby’s sight rested upon Snow, he could almost see her beginning to rebuild her emotional wall brick by brick. After tearing it down no more than a few days ago, Snow was reminded of the world and it’s cruelties by the recent attacks in Fabletown and was no doubt adjusting herself emotionally to deal with them by shutting everything and everyone out, including Bigby.

“Bigby, what happened?” Snow asks, taking Rapunzel’s slightly limp hand in hers and looking closely into her eyes as if expecting them to open at any moment. 

“I was walking back from checking in on Holly and I smelled blood and heard a struggle. I followed it down an alley where I ran into a guy who was wearing all black and a mask, he must’ve been the one to stab her. I barely saw him for a second before he ran away, I was so freaked out I wasn’t sure what to do but I went to the end of the alley and that’s where I found her.” Bigby explains, suddenly feeling the full weight of not grabbing the man who did this fall on his shoulders. Running his hands through his hair out of stress, he begins to pace in circles around the room.

“Was she already unconscious when you found her?” She asks, checking Rapunzel’s pulse on her wrist.

“No, but barely. I asked who she was and what happened. She told me that her name was Rapunzel and that the man had pulled her from the sidewalk and stabbed her.” Bigby tells Snow, remembering every vivid detail from the scene. “There was something weird though. The man I ran into wasn’t carrying a knife and there was no knife at the scene. Instead, there was a big shard of glass covered in her blood.”

Snow grows confused before making a huge realization. She jumps up from the floor and demands Bigby to stay with Rapunzel before rushing upstairs from the Business Office. She knew that something in Rapunzel’s story from the Homelands was very similar to what’s happening right now.

“Bufkin!” Snow calls out, waking the drunk monkey who flies down to her desk. “Get Rapunzel’s story, please.” She requests. Without speaking, he returns a few short moments later with a small leather-bound book with the word Rapunzel stamped on the cover in faded gold ink. Snow quickly flips through the pages of the book until she finds the last few pages of Rapunzel’s story. “Got it, thank you, Bufkin.” She smiles, proud of herself and pleased that she was getting closer to finding out what happened with Rapunzel and why it happened. She runs back down the stairs, book in hand, and re-enters the lobby to find Dr. Swineheart sitting in a chair pulled up next to Rapunzel who remained unconscious.

“What did you find, Snow?” Bigby asks, getting up from his chair where he had sat nervously tapping his foot.

“Listen to this-” Snow begins, opening the page she had found and marked in the office. “Mother Gothel then appeared behind Flynn and stabbed him in the stomach. Flynn fell to the ground, shattering a mirror beside him. She said that she was going to hide Rapunzel away to keep her forever young and that Flynn was going to die. Rapunzel begged to heal Flynn with her hair and Mother Gothel let her, on the agreement that she would never attempt to escape. Rapunzel goes to Flynn but before she is able to heal him, Flynn grabs a shard of the mirror and cuts off Rapunzel’s golden tresses, leaving her with short brown hair, stripped of its magic.” Snow recites from the book before closing it and placing it on the table. “Back in the Homelands, Flynn and Rapunzel were married and ruled their small kingdom. I’m not sure if they’re still married, but nonetheless, in the story, Flynn was stabbed in the stomach and then Rapunzel’s hair was cut with a piece of a broken mirror. It seems that whoever did this was familiar with her story and planned out this attack based on it.” Snow explains with a solid argument, convincing Bigby of her theory. “Bigby, do you think that this and what happened at Holly’s bar are connected?” Snow asks, fear obvious in her voice. She was growing fearful of the demise of Fabletown, after all of the violence and death over the past few months.

“I’m not sure. Both what happened at Holly’s place and this are messages, maybe even threats. Neither seemed to be for personal gains, such as simple robbery, and both seemed to be premeditated.” Bigby says, attempting to think of a strong and solid connection between the two. These definitely weren’t random occurrences, but there didn’t seem to be an obvious connection.

The five stand in silence, not sure what to say to one another, for a few moments before Dr. Swineheart begins to comment on Rapunzel’s state. “Whoever did this was clearly angry,” he comments quietly, not wanting to distract himself.

“What do you mean?” Snow asks, moving closer to examine Rapunzel’s stomach one more and see her partially sewn together organs. Upon closer look, Snow saw Rapunzel’s eyes beginning to move slightly as if she were regaining consciousness.

“The blade pierced her right here at the center of her torso just below her ribs and then sent all the way down to her navel. Dr. Swineheart says, pointing to the exposed bone of her body. “Then, after the initial cut, the blade was stuck in deeper and possibly twisted around to cut even more organs around mid-depth of her torso.” He explains as he motions to the organs he had already sewn shut. Filled with disgust, Snow walks away and lets the doctor finish doing his work.

From a safer distance, Snow continues to watch Dr. Swineheart stitch Rapunzel back together. About five minutes later, Rapunzel fully reopens her eyes and begins to speak. “W-Where am I?” She mumbles before attempting to sit up. After feeling a nauseating strike of pain in her stomach, she decides to remain laying down. 

“You’re at the Woodlands, Rapunzel. Bigby here found you in the alley with a deep cut down your stomach. Do you remember anything that happened?” Snow asks, sitting down on her knees once more by the couch Rapunzel was resting on to speak with her. 

“Snow, is that you?” Rapunzel says faintly, lifting her hand towards the Deputy Mayor. 

“Yes, it’s me and I can tell you that you’re going to be alright.” Snow reassures her as she looks down at her stomach once more. The skin of her stomach was about halfway sewn back together. Snow reaches out to take Rapunzel’s hand in her own and Bigby grows curious. He had never heard Snow mention Rapunzel before but they seem to know each other. 

“Flynn. I need to talk to Flynn, he’ll be worrying.” Rapunzel mumbles as her eyes open and close slowly. Every time Dr. Swineheart pierces her skin with the needle she flinches slightly. 

“Do you live with Flynn? Is he home?” Snow asks, hoping that Rapunzel knows a number to reach him with. Rapunzel nods, presumably to both of the questions. Snow rushes over to the security desk and grabs a pen and paper to write down a phone number.

Snow asks Rapunzel to tell her their phone number and gives it to Grimble, instructing him to call and tell Flynn everything that’s happened and to come to the Woodlands. Snow asks Rapunzel what happened once more, and Rapunzel explains a fuzzy and very nondescriptive story of walking home from her job at a Mundy office and being pulled into an alley and stabbed after her purse was stolen. As Snow is preoccupied, Bigby looks out the front doors and notices a bright white envelope on the stairs outside. 

“Snow, can you come with me for a moment?” Bigby asks, walking over towards the door to see what the package was. It wasn’t there when they arrived, so someone must have dropped it off while everyone was focusing on helping Rapunzel. It surely wasn’t the typical mail at this time at night, so it must’ve been delivered by a person. 

“Yes, what is it?” Snow asks as she follows Bigby out the doors. He picks up the thick envelope and sees the words “dirty money” written in thick black letters on the outside. Upon opening the package, there were about a hundred bucks in cash and a large purse inside, thoroughly confusing both the Deputy Mayor and the Sheriff. 

Snow pauses for a moment before mentally putting the pieces together. That purse must’ve been the one stolen from Rapunzel, and the money may have been what was stolen from Holly’s bar, but what was the connection between to two? They were both working women but what did their money have in common. Suddenly, Snow is overcome with a shocking realization. 

“Bigby, I know what’s going on.”


	10. Episode 2: Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lil flashback!

_ Monday, September 17, 1945 _

_ It has been a fortnight and a day since The War ended and Mr. Wolf hasn’t yet returned. A Mundy would typically fear death or imprisonment of their departed by now, but those have not even appeared to me as possibilities. It would take a hell of a lot to kill or even maim- _

“Miss White, get Mr. Beast in here immediately.” The Deputy Mayor demands from his desk, sitting his pen down on his desk. Becoming annoyed by her mindless note taking being interrupted and by the way her boss always treated her with little respect, Snow pushed her personal feelings to the side and followed her boss’s demands.

“Yes, Mr. Crane.” She replies with an obvious unenthusiastic voice. Rising from her wooden desk, Snow leaves the Business Office and enters the Sheriff’s Office where Beast, Bigby’s replacement while he was gone, resided.

“Crane wants to see you, Beast. Fair warning, he doesn’t seem too happy.” Snow sighs, peeking her head into the small office next door to her. The temporary sheriff sighs as well as he stands up and follows Snow White back into the Business Office. Beast had seldom spoken to Snow himself, but his wife, Belle, and her were friends so it was nice to have someone he was at least acquainted with over the past few years at his job.

After entering the office, the two go separate ways. Beast cautiously approaches the Deputy Mayor’s desk where an irritated and angry looking Ichabod Crane sits and Miss White returns to her humble little desk. After a small hushed squabble about Beast secretly having the witches upstairs alter his curse so that he would be able to transform between man and beast much like the official sheriff, something Beast did at the beginning of his career as sheriff but was only recently brought to Crane’s attention, the wooden door of the Business Office squeaks open. 

“Bigby!” Snow exclaims, quickly jumping up from her desk due to a rush of excitement as a wide smile appears across her rose-tinted lips. A sense of relief rushes over her as she realizes that she won’t have to put up with working with Crane by herself anymore since her old friend has returned to the office. 

“Well, speak of the devil,” Crane says in a stern and rude manner, intertwining his fingers and placing his hands on his desk. The small smile that the wolf wore fading quickly as his eyes landed upon his boss. 

“Good to see you too, Ichabod,” Bigby replies sarcastically as he saunters over towards Miss White’s desk. “So, what all happened while I was gone?” He asks Snow, purposefully avoiding and ignoring the Deputy Mayor. 

Before Snow has a chance to speak, Crane inserts himself into the conversation; “Yes, Miss White, please do fill in your colleague about the events that plagued us as he wasted six years of his life fighting for a country that has done nothing for us.”

Ignoring his unnecessary comments yet following his orders, Snow rises from her desk and travels to the Sheriff’s Office where she will have access to all criminal files, Bigby following close behind her. 

“Thank God you’re back, I don’t know how much more I could take from that man without you to complain to and sympathize with.” Snow sighs as she shuts the office door behind the two. 

“Trust me, it was rough without you too.” Bigby sighs as he sits down in the chair behind his desk. Little butterflies flew around in Snow’s stomach but she ignored them, as she always does, yet put on a little smile to appease them. She considered asking why it was difficult for Bigby with her not around but she decides against it, sticking with her somewhat romantic interpretation of his words. For some odd reason, it was always quite difficult for either of the two to admit that they cared for the other, even though they did deeply.

Snow had grown fond of him over many decades of Bigby being there for her and respecting her, but she didn’t like it. Her walls that she had built up after entering the Mundane world protected her from all of the pain she suffered from in the Homelands. Being self-reliant and not being too close to anybody were key points in her walls, and if she admitted to herself that she would like to be close to Bigby, her walls would crumble. 

Bigby has grown fond of Snow across a long span of time as well. Her independence, bravery, and self-assurance made him proud, in a strange way, to be with her. He wasn’t sure if Snow knew or not, but he would see right through her walls. Unlike the majority of the Fabletown community, he understood that the front she puts up at work and in public is exactly that: a front. Underneath that facade, she was warm and kind and comforting. Something about her complexity attracted him. He knew her so well that he could crack her system, he knew how to make her tick, and he craved to do so. 

Regardless of opinion or emotion, the two had changed each other’s lives deeply and drastically. If the wolf hadn’t freed Snow from imprisonment, she may be dead or still being held captive in the Homelands. If Snow hadn’t cut Bigby with her Lycanthropy stained knife, he would still be a wolf and unable to change into human form like he is capable of doing now. They had both brought each other to where they are right now. 

“So, what all happened while I was out?” Bigby asks as he breaks the comfortable silence. He opens his far left desk drawer becomes confused as he looks inside. 

“Beast probably moves some of your stuff around.” Snow comments, noticing Bigby’s confusion. He nods before grabbing a small paper and box of tobacco out of his pocket and rolling himself a smoke. He lights it between his lips and nods at Snow, waiting for her to fill him in. “We had been adjusting our lives to accommodate with the war for the most part. Little action or excitement happened in the sheriff department other than… well,” 

“Snow?” The sheriff says, confused as concerned by her trailing off. She takes a deep breath before continuing.

“While you were gone, there was an uprising of sorts of Fables against the Mundane people.” 

“What do you mean uprising? They didn’t attack any Mundies, did they?” The sheriff asks and he leans forward in his seat, growing worried.

“No, not Mundies directly, but they protested and petitioned for it to be illegal to work for Mundies because no common Mundy should be esteemed higher than a Fable. It was mainly the wealthy and those who took great pride in their previous lives in the Homelands since they didn’t quite understand that many Fables depended on Mundy work to survive.” Snow explains, remembering the protestors outside of the Woodlands building. She and Beast had to explain to them that by protesting they were breaking the law by drawing the attention of Mundies and threatening to expose their community. 

“Is this still going on?” Bigby asks, already becoming exhausted at the thought of having to deal with a bunch of ignorant, entitled Fables.

“Not really, the main group dispersed about a year ago but the anti-Mundy feeling is still strong in the community.”

“When is it not?”   
  



	11. Episode 2: Chapter 5

“What is it?” Bigby asks anxiously, desperately grasping at any explanation as to what’s going on.

“Remember how Holly mentioned that the protection spells were weak around the bar and sometimes Mundies would come through?” Snow asks and Bigby nods along, not wanting to interrupt her. “Well right inside, Rapunzel mentioned how she worked with Mundies. Both Holly and Rapunzel were robbed and now there’s a package with the money taken from them that says “dirty money”. The package proves that the two are obviously related so there’s no doubt about that, and the fact that both Holly and Rapunzel worked with Mudies proves a connection between the two persons. I think that the motivation behind this was a hatred for Mundies. No Fable is stupid enough to go out killing actual Mundies and showing it off to Fables so they are attacking Fables who work with them. They got this money from Mundies, therefore in the perpetrator’s eyes this money is dirty.” She explains, making a sound argument.

“So, these are the actions of someone with a strong hatred for Mundies?” Bigby asks, ensuring that he understood her correctly.

“Yes, and it all makes sense. If Holly and Rapunzel were able to make a living through the money of Mundies they probably had a respect for them, something that would anger the perpetrator. Not to mention that almost all Fables at least slightly dislike Mundies for being bothersome and annoying, so the concept of that festering into a loathing for Mundies isn’t too far fetched.” Snow continues, formulating a very compelling argument. Before Bigby was able to express his agreement with her, the high pitched squeaking of iron gates fills the one silent air. The two look to the fence surrounding the Woodlands and see a tall male figure rushing towards them.

“I just got the call, where’s Rapunzel?” He asks in a serious yet scared tone. Being cautious, Snow decides to ask the man his identity before entering the Woodlands. “Flynn, now where is she?” The man replies, growing frustrated and angry. 

“In here.” Snow says before opening the large glass door and entering the Woodlands, followed closely by Bigby and Flynn.

Rapunzel!” Flynn shouts as he rushes over to his wife and dropping to his knees to rest by her side. He glances down at the bloodstained and stitched gash down the middle of her stomach and feels tears well up in his eyes.

“Flynn, do you have any idea who would want to do this to Rapunzel?” Bigby asks as he walks closer to Flynn, preparing to interrogate him. Snow considers asking Bigby to wait a moment and allow Flynn to have a moment with Rapunzel but rejects the idea on the basis that Bigby would probably just keep interrogating him anyway.

“No, nobody at all. I mean, we tell each other everything and the most she’s ever complained about anyone is people annoying her at work.” Flynn explains, shaking slightly and breathing heavily as he looks over Rapunzel’s body.

Rapunzel’s job, where she works with Mundies. Bigby thinks to himself, wondering if he and Snow should tell Flynn the motive they have in mind. “Should we tell him?” He asks Snow, keeping his voice low to prevent Flynn from hearing him. In his state of shock and worry, however, Flynn was probably paying very little attention to anything else other than Rapunzel. 

“He may know something about it or, better yet, someone specific with a vendetta against Mundies. There’s no harm in telling him if the lead ends up being wrong, it’s not like we’re accusing a person just yet.” Snow explains, choosing her words carefully as she speaks and ensuring that she means what she’s saying. A slip-up and lack of proper judgment in a situation like this could end up costing someone their life. “You should tell him.” She sighs as she fixes her eyes upon the sight before her. Flynn, breaking as a person and leaning over his wife who is grasping at life. Anything that may help make this situation better is worth it. 

“We do have a theory about the motive of these attacks.” Bigby opens the discussion, walking closer towards Flynn so the two could talk at a comfortable distance. Flynn looks up at the sheriff, shocked and confused, and ushers for him to continue. “Based on recent events and a package we just got from whoever is committing these crimes, we think that they are targeting people who associate, or work, with Mundies.” He informs Flynn, whose face immediately drops into terror and a much deeper state of shock. Picking up on these expressions, Bigby asks if he knows anyone who may have a strong hatred for Mundies. 

“John Hanby, his story is called the Brave Little Tailor and that’s what the Mundies know him as. He still owns a tailor shop just a few blocks over from here, and I’m his assistant.” Flynn begins, and it’s quite clear where this is going.

“How long have you been working there? What has he done that suggested he hates Mundies?” Bigby asks, pushing him to find out the truth about what happened but attempting to stay calm and peaceful since Flynn is technically a victim in this situation.

“I’ve only worked there for about a year. I had been working at an office with Mundies for about ten years and, well, having not aged a day while everyone else around me had, I figured that it was time to leave before people got suspicious.” Flynn informs Bigby.

“Did John know that you had worked with Mundies?” Snow asks, she ponders the thought that perhaps this was why Rapunzel was attacked, as a way to get back at and send a message to Flynn about associating with Mundies.

“No, I don’t think I ever mentioned that it was a Mundy owned place. We didn’t talk too much about job experience, it was more so just a matter of he needed someone who was good with numbers and planning and that was me. But in my first few days there, before he said or did anything weird, I was talking to him about Rapunzel and I…” Flynn trails off, guilt virtually dripping from his words. Everyone had assumed what he was going to say next, but Flynn still had to say it. “I told him that she worked with Mundies. He was weird about it and began telling me that Mundies are trash and pure annoyances. I mean I thought it to be a little weird and extreme but, I don’t know, I guess I didn’t think any more into it.” He shrugs, looking down at the dark wooden floors. “Afterwards we just continued as nothing had happened. Every once in a while he would make some mean comment about them but I didn’t think anything like this was even possible.

“It’s okay, there’s no way that you could have known any of this was going to happen. Do you have John’s address? Snow and I will go check it out and see if he’s the one who’s been doing this.” Bigby asks Flynn. Although it was slightly expected, Snow was still pleased by the fact that Bigby was already including her in the investigation without her having to ask first.

“No, I don’t have John’s but I do have the address to the tailor shop,” Flynn replies, grabbing the same pen and notepad Snow had used to write down Rapunzel and Flynn’s phone number and writing down the store address. “Here, it’s walking distance from where we are.” He says as he hands the slip of paper to Bigby and returns to Rapunzel’s side, taking her hand in his once more and waiting rather impatiently for her to regain consciousness. Bigby and Snow leave the Woodlands and begin to trail down the dimly lit street. 

“Do you have any idea what’s going on here?” Snow asks as the large iron gate shuts behind them.

“I believe what you said, about the person targeting Fables who interact with Mundies often, it’s the only logical reason for the envelope of money. If it means something else, then I’m not sure what that is. I can’t think of any other connection between Rapunzel and Holly.” The sheriff explains his viewpoint.

“Yes, I suppose I agree with that.” Snow mumbles, feeling uneasy about the subject as always. “But there’s something I don’t get; why did he burn Holly’s things? I understand why he stabbed Rapunzel, it’s what happened to Flynn in the Homelands, but why burn Holly’s bar? I get the convenience of it being filled with a sort of lighter fluid but not much else.”

The two think on the question as they continue to walk down the warm New York street until a realization strikes the sheriff. “Wait, Snow, do you remember what Holly said about troll funerals back when we visited her at her bar?” He asks, thinking that he had caught onto a connection.

“Yes, she said they burn their dead by…” Snow trails off, catching onto the sheriff’s idea.

“They burn their dead by sunrise. That’s the connection. This man is attacking people who associate with Mundies in ways that relate to their lives back in the Homelands- their lives before they were exposed to the Mundane people.” Bigby explains, causing all of these recent events to make sense.

“Hopefully I don’t get poisoned, again.” Snow thinks to herself as they approach the tailor shop. Without exchanging words, Bigby opens the door and the two walk in. The room in pitch black and silent. Snow turns on the lights and the room becomes illuminated by a soft yellow glow. The building is presumably empty.

“Back here.” Snow mumbles as she walks towards the tall, dark wooden partition that stretches across the majority of the narrow building. Behind the wall sat a small desk, scattered with a few papers. “Nothing of interest here.” Snow sighs as she sees that all of the papers are receipts and documents about tailoring. Bigby begins to shuffle through the drawers and dividers in search of something with a different address. In a pile of what appears to be old notes to Flynn or customers, he finds a small slip of paper that reads “To Thomas Elrich, I won’t be in the shop today. Come by my apartment to pick up the suit. The address is Suite 217 in Bellridge Apartments 4726 Ardson Ave” and in scribbled writing at the bottom of the piece of paper John had written “nasty Mundy place, been waiting for an availability in The Woodlands but apparently so is half of Fabletown”

“Snow, look at this.” Bigby remarks as he hands the note to Snow who quickly reads over it. 

“Imagine having this man as a neighbor in The Woodlands.” Snow sighs, clearly disgusted by the thought. “Nevermind that, it definitely won’t happen now. We got the address to John’s home which is what we came for. It’s about time something went right.”

“There won’t be many if any cabs at this hour in Fabletown. I know where Ardson street is and it’s not too far, we can just walk.” Bigby says, pocketing the note with the address and leaving the small shop with Snow by his side. The two begin walking to the apartment complex, and a question reappears in Bigby’s mind. “When you were with Rapunzel, the two of you seemed to know each other already. Did you know her?”

Snow sighs, a strange sense of sadness and lethargy gathering around her. It was a state that he had seen her in before, but only when she spoke of past grievances such as Crane or Prince Charming; her story with Rapunzel was obviously an unpleasant one.

“We met back in the Homelands when the Adversary had taken over a majority of the land. In fact, it was just a few months before the official Exodus occurred and portals to this land became prominent. We were both captured and held at the same camp as prisoners. We became close while we were there and helped each other out quite a bit. If one of us found food or lost supplies in the forests, we would share it with the other. After being together for a few months, she was taken away from the camp and never returned. Part of me assumed she died, but I never wanted to fully believe it. However, I didn’t spend much time on my own. After Rapunzel disappeared, it was only a matter of days before you-” Snow attempts to fill in the entire story for Bigby, but finds herself stuck. Admitting that she needs or needed help in situations was never a strong suit of hers.

Although unable to verbalize the events, Snow remembers them quite clearly. A wolf at least twice the height of any man she had seen before with piercing, wicked yellow eyes that seemed to glow in the dark night. As the bravest warriors in the camp fled and prisoners shrouded back as far as their chains would allow them, knowing that they were going to be eaten or at the least killed by the beast for sport, Snow stood firmly in her place. Fearless, she raised her hands and placed her heavy iron shackles before the monster’s mouth. He bit them clean in half, freeing her from her captivity, and left the camp, leaving every inhabitant unharmed.

Eventually, the two reach the door to John’s apartment. After attempting to open the door, Bigby discovers that it is locked. An expected burden, seen as this is his house and people don’t typically leave their front doors unlocked for intruders like Bigby and Snow. However, after colliding with the sheriff tonight, it is rather unlikely that John will return home since he is now a fugitive. With this in mind, Bigby takes a few steps back before kicking the door in, entering quickly alongside Snow, and closing the door behind them to prevent being discovered by any other curious people who overheard the loud thud of the door. 

The entire apartment was incredibly clean and organized; eerily clean for a criminal. Snow spotted another wooden desk, very similar to the one in the tailor shop, sitting against the wall in the living room. Unlike everything else in the room which was tidy, the desk had a stack of papers scattered across it. “Bigby, over here.” She instructed, waking over to the desk.

Upon closer inspection, the two discover that the papers are in fact letters from John to someone addressed as ‘Bella’. “These are a bunch of letters he never sent. It seems that he was romantically attracted to this ‘Bella’.” Snow suggests as they shuffle through the numerous letters. “Look, this one is in different writing.” Snow says, holding up a letter that was addressed to John rather than being sent by him. 

After reading the letter, it became apparent that whoever wrote it was instructing John to attack ‘the scum’ and ‘the Mundy lovers’. “So, I guess it was John who attacked Holly and Rapunzel, but it wasn’t of his own free will?” Snow suggests, very unsure of her theory. 

“It doesn’t seem that he was forced to attack people. It sounds more like John and this person both hated Mundies and wanted to hurt Fables who associate with them but this writer was the mastermind behind the attacks.” Bigby explains, later pointing out that there was no blackmailing either and John seemed to love this person rather than hate them for manipulating him, so it’s highly unlikely that his actions were forced. 

“Look, the letter is signed A.M.. I suppose Bella must be a nickname.” Snow says, pointing to the cursive writing at the bottom of the note. “Annabelle, maybe?” She suggests. 

“I’m not sure, but she’s definitely a Fable. Let’s go back to the Business Office and search for a Fable with the initials A.M.. John is still responsible for his own actions, but so is this person. God, nothing can ever be simple, can it?”


	12. Episode 2: Chapter 6

Trails of blood orange tinted clouds begin to spill over the horizon as the sun rises over New York. The sheriff and Deputy Mayor rush back to the Woodlands with their newly acquired knowledge fresh in their mind. For the sake of having evidence in a trial, Snow grabbed a few of the notes on John’s desk, folded them up, and placed them in her pocket for safekeeping until she reached the Business Office.

“We have about an hour and a half before people start showing up for scheduled meetings. In the off chance that we haven’t discovered who this ‘Bella’ woman is by then, Gabrielle can handle them for me.” Snow assures Bigby, checking her watch to see that it was already half past five in the morning. She had barely slept for two hours and the sheriff hadn’t slept at all. Their jobs hadn’t been treating them too kindly recently.

The two rush up to the Business Office, ignoring Grimble who was asleep at his desk as always. “Bufkin!” The Deputy Mayor yells as she enters her office. The monkey soon swoops down from some tall and distant bookshelf, making his presence known by accidentally knocking down a few things on his way towards Snow.

“You two are up early. What can I do for you?” Bufkin asks as he sits down on the Deputy Mayors desk.

“Bufkin, I need you to get the Fabletown Charter and those first three books with all of the Fables in them that we used to find Faith.” Snow requests, too in-the-moment to feel the full weight of the emotional baggage that came about with mentioning Faith’s name anymore.

“Snow, are you… okay?” The sheriff asks as Bufkin flies away to retrieve the books and documents that Snow had requested. 

“I’m fine. It’s just a lot with this happening so quickly and to people that we know. I’m still rather shaken up about finding Rapunzel and what happened to her. We should go visit her and Flynn, just to check up on them and because Flynn may know something more about John or this woman that he’s been writing to.” Snow responds, clearly in her “work-mode” due to her lack of worry for her personal emotions and practically all of her focus on the case. Deep down, both she and the sheriff knew that she was going to need a time of peace sometime soon or else she was going to break, yet neither of them wanted to or would admit it.

A few minutes later Bufkin returned with three heavy books and a scroll in hand. “You look through the books with Bufkin, I’m going to go ask the Mirror about John.” Snow said before walking away from her desk where Bufkin had landed. Bigby begins to flip through the multiple books which, to his demise, weren’t in any sort of alphabetical order, merely the order in which people arrived in Fabletown and were documented. After a few minutes of flicking through many pages, Snow come over to assist in the search.

“What did you find?” Bigby asks as she approached him.

“Wel, at first the mirror tried to show me Trusty John the doorkeeper who was sleeping, so I had him go onto the next and only John in Fabletown, who I presume is our guy, because I could barely see him through the darkness but it seemed that he was in a warehouse or large metal building of some sort frantically writing in a journal. Unfortunately, no exact location.” Snow explains as she opens a book and brushes through the pages as Bufkin looked down the Fabletown Charter to see if anybody with the initials A.M. had signed as an official resident of Fabletown.

“Snow, look,” Bigby says as he points to a possible match for their mystery woman.

“Arabella Miller.” Snow breathes as she looks over the Fable’s profile. Escaping the Homelands later on in the Exodus, and seemingly being coerced to do so, she left without any of her numerous siblings. “It fits the initials and the nickname Bella. Also, the fact that she didn’t want to leave the Homelands may show some early on prejudice towards Mundies, since by the end of the Exodus word had reached back home that there were new non-magic people in the world that we were traveling to.”

“I think we’ve got a match, now we just need to find out where she is. I’ve got a feeling that Dee may know something about that.” Bigby says, knowing all too well that when something shady or illegal is happening in Fabletown a Tweedle is probably involved somehow.

“You really want to risk going there after Dee watched you murder Dum in that alley?” Snow asks, providing caution and a voice of reason for the sheriff: two things he didn’t like when working.

“I didn’t murder him, Snow, it was self defense! They were trying to kill me and damn near succeeded.” Bigby replies angrily raising his voice more than intended. Snow sighs and doesn’t respond. Over the years she had learned the hard way to pick your battles, and this wasn’t one worth fighting for. She knows that he didn’t murder Dum. Did she like what Bigby had done? Hell no, but Dee was going to see the situation as murder and not self defense.

“Whatever, why don’t I go to the Tweedles’ office and you go to the Knights of Malta and check up on Flynn and Rapunzel.” Snow suggests, knowing that she won’t be kicked out of the Tweedles’ office. At least not immediately.

“Sure, lets go ahead and leave, we don’t have any time to lose.” Bigby sighs. Rubbing his forehead as he and Snow go to leave the Business Office and subsequently the Woodlands. They walk together in near absolute silence until the point where their paths fork. “Come to the hospital when you’re done. Your task will most likely take less time and once I’m done questioning the two I’ll stay there with them until you arrive.” Bigby plans out, wanting to keep each other as updated as possible.

“Sure, I should be back in about twenty minutes.” Snow replies as she checks her watch before turning around and continuing down her path.

Bigby enters the large hospital and takes the elevator up to the Restricted Level, Dr. Swineheart’s way of keeping at least one level of the hospital exclusive for Fables. Upon approaching Rapunzel’s hospital room, Bigby peered through the small windows and saw a woman dressed in pedestrian clothing inserting a small vile onto Rapunzel’s IV drip. Knowing that she definitely wasn’t a nurse but not wanting to rush to conclusions, Bigby cautiously opened the door and stepped inside. 

After hearing the creak of the door and the tap of Bigby’s shoe on the cold, hard tiles, the woman quickly turned her head towards the source of the sound, causing her long, messy brown hair to flip behind her. “Who are you?” The sheriff asked sternly as he quickly walked towards her, realizing that she was possibly doing some harm to Rapunzel as her face became saturated with guilt after being discovered. She grabbed the small bottle she had placed onto Rapunzel’s IV and turned towards the desk beside her, shielding her actions from the wolf.

“What did you do to her?” Bigby asks, his voice growing increasingly angry as he reached out and grabbed the woman’s arm to turn her around. She quickly pulled away from Bigby’s grasp and turned towards him out of her own free will. She raised her hand, revealing a needle, which she quickly plunged into the neck of the man before her and emptied the contents of into his throat. 

Feeling the sharp sting, Bigby reached up to grab the woman’s hand and shove it away from him. As he pushed her away, he felt his naturally keen senses begin to weaken. Blackness creeped around the edges of his vision until completely consuming him. He lost the feeling in his limbs and dropped to the floor as his legs gave out. The last thing he heard was soft footsteps slowly and calmly leaving the room before he completely cost his consciousness.

***

“Bigby? Bigby, wake up!” Snow says worriedly as she taps Bigby’s shoulders. The sheriff groans as he regains his consciousness. Sitting up on the floor that he had collapsed upon, he rubbed his forehead as his blurry vision returned. “I leave you along for twenty minutes and you somehow manage to nearly get yourself killed, again. I think the Business Office is going to hire a babysitter for you.” Snow jokes as she stands up from the cold tile alongside the sheriff.

“There was a woman in here. She was pumping something into Rapunzel’s IV and then stabbed me with a needle full of it.” Bigby hazily explains. “Rapunzel.” He mutters, suddenly remembering why he had come here in the first place and becoming worried about her well being after the little encounter he just had.

“She’s fine. When I got here and found you, well, in the state that you were in I had Nurse Spratt come in here and check on Rapunzel as well.” Snow says, observing the worry and concern on her colleague’s face.

“How come I didn’t get a nurse to check on me?” Bigby jokes, still mumbling as he was just holding onto his consciousness, as he walked over to the tray where the bottle of liquid that the mysterious lady had possessed lay.

“I knew you would be fine, you always are.” The Deputy Mayor smiles loosely, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “So, what exactly happened?”

“I came in here to talk to Flynn and Rapunzel. However, Flynn wasn’t here and Rapunzel was asleep in her bed like she is now. There was a woman connecting Rapunzel’s IV to this solution.” Bigby says as he holds up the small, blue bottle. There was no label on it and it didn’t look medical grade, so it was possibly something packaged either by this woman herself or illegally. The bottle was still almost full, however. “I started to go towards her but she saw me, filled up a needle with this liquid and injected it into my neck. Then she ran off without a word.”

“What is that stuff?” Snow asks, walking up behind the sheriff. 

“I’m not sure, but barely any of it was taken out and injected into me. If that small of a dosage was something to knock me out pretty good, this whole bottle would probably be enough to kill someone.” Bigby observes, placing the bottle back on the counter. As he places it back down, his attention was drawn to a note placed on the tray. “Snow, look at this.” He says as he holds up the paper to read it.

“Manhattan, Upper East Side, Finshore Row, Warehouse #4 - Arabella.” Snow read aloud. “Oh my God, was that Arabella Miller who poisoned you?” Snow asks, mentally connecting the dots.

“I’m not sure, but I intend to find out.”


	13. Episode 3: Chapter 1

“Well, that’s rather ominous. Are you going to go right now?” Snow asks, looking up from the note and turning her gaze to the sheriff.

“Don’t you mean are we going to go right now?” Bigby replies, partially joking about how Snow has been inserting herself into his investigations recently and partially inviting her to come with him. 

“Isn’t there a rather large possibility of this being dangerous, though?” Snow says cautiously. As much as she knew she wanted to be valued and involved in the going ons in the Business Office and the Sheriff’s Office, dealing with dangerous or even life threatening situations wasn’t exactly her area of expertise.

“We don’t work with Mundies, they won’t be as mad at us as they were with others.” Bigby sighs, glancing over at Rapunzel as she lay unconscious in her hospital bed. “And as far as I’m aware, they’re both human Fables, so they won’t morph into a talking Lion or Dragon.” He chuckles, realizing that he’s not only convincing Snow but also himself that the situation won’t be dangerous.

“You’re right.” Snow shrugs, looking over at her long lost friend Rapunzel. As the sheriff watches her, he notices that her eyes slowly shift from showing pity, to anger, to determination. “Well then, what are we waiting for?” She asks rhetorically as she walks with her head high over towards the hospital room door.

The sheriff nods and follows her out of the room, down the elevator, and back out on the street. The morning sun had fully risen and the daily hustle and bustle had begun on the New York streets. As people walked down the sidewalks on their way to work, Bigby and Snow felt flashes of panic, worry, and fear as they imagined the worst of what Arabella and John were capable of. 

Snow calls over a cab for them and they enter the back seats. Bigby gives the driver the address, reading off of the note from Arabella. Although he is able to put on a calm voice, anger bubbles inside of him. Holly, a relatively innocent and downtrodden soul, and Rapunzel, a kind woman and friend of Snow, had both been attacked by these monsters and Bigby was seeking justice. No, not justice, vengeance. It was something he had always struggled with, and something Snow had gotten onto him for many a times. 

The sheriff all too often let his emotions get the best of him, and punished criminals just as harshly as they had attacked their victims. An eye for an eye, in his mind. Most of Fabletown seemed to go along with it, with their dishing out of the death penalty via the Witching Well, although none of them would ever admit it. They reprimanded Bigby for being violent, yet they secretly craved the violence as well. He was their scapegoat for their own sins. 

“We’re here.” Snow said quietly as the taxi came to a halt. Bigby paid the driver and climbed out of the car. Having not smoked in about an hour, Bigby’s senses were overpowering him and causing him to have a small headache. He, however, suppressed the urge to smoke, as they may help him out if Arabella were to attack him or, God forbid, Snow.

“I think it’s just down there.” Snow motions towards the end of the block as the two step off of the road and onto the sidewalk. Large, red bricked buildings, most of which were older than most of the Mundies in New York, lined the street. Upon closer inspection, Bigby saw that they were standing in front of a building with the numbers 002 painted on it in large, white, uniform numbers, a detail Snow must have already noticed in order to guess where warehouse #4 was.

The two walk in absolute silence, accompanied only by the soft, muffled, racket of machinery inside the buildings. They both stop in front of the building marked 004 and, without saying a word, begin to walk up to the large, iron front door. As they reach the entrance Bigby sticks his hand out, motioning for Snow to stay back, as he presses his ear up against the door and tries to listen inside. Unable to hear anything, Bigby steps back before opening the door.

Standing in the middle of the low ceiling and dimly lit room was the woman Bigby had seen in Rapunzel’s hospital room before, the woman he had marked as Arabella Miller. Hearing the heavy door creak open, Arabella jerks her head towards the entrance and quickly raises the gun she held in her hand and points it at Bigby as a sort of reflex.

“It’s about time.” She spits through clenched teeth as she walks over towards the wall. Bigby looks over towards the wall that she was walking to and sees a man slouching with duct tape over his mouth and his hands behind his back. He was clinging to consciousness. Was this another one of Arabella’s victims? Snow notices the man as well and has no idea who he is. To Bigby, however, he seems vaguely familiar, yet he doesn’t know for sure who the man is.

“John and I were starting to worry you had forgotten about us, weren’t we, John?” Arabella asks the man that she pulls up from the ground, still keeping her gun focused on Bigby the entire time. It wasn’t much of a threat to him, though, having guns pointed at him had become rather common over the past few weeks, during which he had also realized just how little of an effect regular bullets were on him.

“John.” Bigby muttered as he remembered where he recognized the man from. He was running out of the alleyway with Rapunzel when Bigby found her stabbed. It still didn’t make total sense to the sheriff. If John and Arabelle were conspiring together, why did she have him tied up and clearly either drugged or otherwise made unconscious?

“I’m guessing you found some of John’s letters, the idiot was never very careful or secretive, and sadly that’s what got him into this situation right now.” Arabella explains, being cryptic as ever and worrying the sheriff, which is an emotion he seldom felt. He knew that criminals, especially attempted murderers, are never very good at the whole empathy thing, he assumes that it was part of their whole psychopath thing. However, when someone is able to correctly guess what you’re thinking and feeling, it makes you realize how you’re one step behind. 

Arabella moves her gun to be pointed towards John’s head, interrupting Bigby’s thoughts. She hasn’t murdered anyone yet, she may still stand a chance to not be punished by death by Fabletown. Someone as insane and violent as her deserves to suffer behind bars, not to receive a rather quick death with little suffering, which is what she would experience if she were to be thrown down the witching well.

Snow’s brain was going down the same path but for very different reasons. Although this wench had deeply hurt the lives of Holly and Rapunzel, one of Snow’s oldest friends, Snow didn’t yearn for her to suffer, she didn’t directly wish for anyone to suffer, but purely face the consequences of their own actions. If she were to kill John, then so be it, she would most likely be punished by death. This logical and by the book reasoning, however, didn’t stop Snow from gasping as the gun became positioned onto the man drooping over unconscious in Arabella’s grasp.

“Arabella, you don’t have to do this.” Bigby calls out, his mind spinning in the background. Why on Earth would Arabella even want to kill John? Was it because of his lack of secrecy that she had mentioned? It was, afterall, what led to Arabella being discovered as well. As these thoughts races through Bigby’s mind, John began to open his eyes as he regained consciousness.

“Actually, sheriff, I do. We had a message to spread and I’m very sure that by this evening, John and I will be the talk of the town. Our kind has always been superior to the Mundies and deep down inside you know it!” Arabella spits as she clearly becomes even more enraged. “Think about it, there isn’t a single way in which Mundies are better. We can produce and use magic, we can live tenfold as long as them, we get shot-” She continues her speech, pausing to point her gun back at the sheriff and shoot him right in the center of the stomach. “We heal.” She comments as Bigby merely falls a few steps back and tightly grasps his hand over the wound, barely wincing at the pain.

Snow, however, is filled with worry at both the sound and the sight. She clasps her hand over her mouth and has to try her best to stop herself from shrieking. However, after seeing the sheriff’s small reaction to the bullet, she refocuses her attention on Arabella.

“Living in this insipid realm with these useless Mundies is an insult and a disgrace to Fables. The Mundy-lovers among us needed a small reminder of the good old days in the Homelands, and how this world has corrupted us.” Arabella continues, explaining her and John’s attacks. “All of this was for Fablekind, and one day, when the Mundies have ruined us completely, you will realize that.” She says calmly before putting a bullet through John’s head, and then her own.


	14. Episode 3: Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I revised the old Episode 3: Chapter 2 so please re-read this one, or at least the ending

“Come on in.” Bigby sighs in response to a rhythmic knocking at his office door. He recognized the sound of the three soft taps, and before the guest even entered, he already knew that it was Snow who stood on the other side of the door.

“Hello, Bigby. I just received a call from Flynn saying that Rapunzel was just released from the hospital. I was thinking about visiting them and going over all of the events once more, and I thought to ask if you might like to join me.” Snow says somewhat nervously as she steps inside of the small, dark office, glancing at the ground and her feet. She knew very well the trip to Flynn and Rapunzel’s home was going to be rather emotional, and although she would love the support of Bigby there with her, the inevitability of a conversation between her and the sheriff after the meeting made her nervous. Mutual respect and understanding had always resided between her and the sheriff, but it was seldom spoken of. An emotional endeavor such as the one she was promoting was bound to result in speaking about the feelings that recent events had stirred up in the two, and the thought of it almost scared her. 

Snow and she sheriff had become too close and too connected recently for her to be able to keep lying to him and keeping up her cold front. However, the thought of sharing her emotions openly struck fear in her. It was the fear of being rejected, misunderstood, or not taken seriously, all of which she had been tucking away over the centuries of her life.

While this storm of emotions was mixed about inside of the Deputy Mayor, a similar whirlwind began to brew inside Bigby. “Social calls aren’t exactly my thing.” He responds, slightly confused by her offer. Although the meeting would involve the duties of a sheriff, it was mainly the Business Office’s job to make sure citizens are pleased and informed.

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” She laughs in response. The laugh was genuine but she also harnessed it to block the possible exposure of her anxiety. She turns back around on her toes and reopens the office door. Before she can leave, Bigby calls out her name, prompting her to turn back around and face him “Yes?”

“After you visit them, since it’s the end of the day, can you and I… talk?” Bigby asks, unsure of how to word himself. He was never too eloquent. He didn’t want to worry Snow by telling her that he wants to talk about her and how she’s doing, well, more specifically how she feels about him, but he begins to fear that by leaving the topic of discussion unnamed and mysterious he does just that.

“Of course.” She smiles loosely, perfectly masking the blizzardous storm circulating in her mind. She steps out of the small office and gently closes the door behind herself, releasing a deep breath. 

Popping back into the Business Office for a moment, Snow asks Gabrielle to handle any visitors while she was gone. After an uplifting reassurance of Gabrielle’s responsibility, Snow is able to calmly leave the Woodlands and take a cab over to Rapunzel and Flynn’s apartment complex. Checking the small note she had tucked away into her blazer pocket which held the address to her old friend’s home, she sees the apartment number is 317. Snow ascends up to the third floor and walks down the very long hallway until she reaches 317, which is almost at the end. She rhythmically taps thrice on the door and patiently awaits a response. 

“Hel- oh, Snow, come on in!” Rapunzel greets her, tucking a small tuft of light brown hair behind her ear as she opens the front door of her apartment. 

“Hello, Rapunzel, it’s nice to see you again. Is Flynn here?” Snow asks, stepping into the modest yet comforting and warm apartment. 

“Yes, but he’s taking a little nap right now. I think the past week has been more tiring on him than on me. He’s been looking after me nonstop, he deserves a little break.” Rapunzel replies with a small laugh as she wraps her large sweater closer around her body. 

“Oh, how sweet of him.” Snow smiles loosely, fantasizing about having someone who cared so much for her. Well, she may have someone like that soon, maybe. He’s waiting back at the Woodlands for her, possibly to talk about if that fantasy is going to become a reality. “Well, I heard you were released from the hospital and wanted to come to check up on you. Oh, I also wanted to give you this.” Snow explains, putting herself back on track. She pulls a small envelope out of her purse and hands it to Rapunzel. “It’s the money which was stolen from you that night. It was dropped off at the Woodlands either by John or Arabella, it was labeled ‘dirty money’ and was part of how we were able to find out what was going on.”

“Oh, thank you.” Rapunzel smiles as she takes the envelope and flips through the money. “Well, I’m doing just fine now that I’m released from the hospital. I’m returning to work in a few days and Flynn and I are just doing a lot of resting up.” She explains, nodding her head. 

“I hope you both recover smoothly and peacefully, Lord knows you deserve it. If you ever need some assistance just come to or call the Business Office and we’ll do what we can. Or, if you ever want to catch up sometime, don’t hesitate to give me a call. Do you have a pen and paper?” Snow asks, which she soon receives. She jots down her phone number and hands it to Rapunzel. 

“Of course, thank you so much, Snow, I would love to catch up when things are back to normal, or at least as normal as they’ll get again.” The brunette smiles graciously. The two say their goodbyes and Snow shows herself out before taking a cab back to the Woodlands and finally found out what the sheriff wanted to speak about. She had a good idea as to what it was going to be about, or at least she thought she did. Bigby had been trying to get her to open up to him for decades, if not centuries, and he was as close as he’d ever been. However, Snow knew that that was mainly due to the fact that she was knowingly and willingly opening up to him more than ever. She still had a long way to go, but she was finally at least open to the idea. She needed it, and she had finally let herself accept that. 

“Bigby, you wanted to speak with me?” Snow asks as she steps into the sheriff’s office. 

“Yeah, let’s go to your place and talk. It’s a lot less depressing in there.” Bigby sighs, smothering his cigarette and standing up from his wooden chair. 

The two walk in absolute silence over to the elevator and up into Snow’s apartment. Bigby has known what he was going to speak about and Snow had figured it out rather quickly, yet they were both incredibly nervous. If only they were assured of what the other was thinking, the would be so much calmer. Bigby feared that his attempt to gain Snow’s affection would fail. One of the only things that kept him sane over the past few centuries in this job was the romanticized idea, hope, and dream that there was the possibility that Snow felt the same about him as he did about her. That dream was about to either be squished or become a reality. 

Snow was terrified because she knew that she wanted to open up to Bigby and finally let herself give into the happiness that he may provide for her. However, in order to indulge in that pleasure, she had to break down the walls she built around herself and allow herself to be emotionally vulnerable, which was her biggest fear. 

“So, how was your visit to Rapunzel and Flynn’s place?” Bigby asks as Snow closes her apartment door behind the two of them. 

“It was okay, we didn’t talk much. Flynn was asleep, I returned Rapunzel’s money to her, and gave her my number before assuring her that the Business Office would be of as much help as possible if she found herself in need of it.” Snow explains as she hangs her purse on her coat rack. “I’m just so worried about the future of Fabletown. I mean, how are we supposed to promote taxation and working with Mundies after two Fables were just assaulted and damn near killed for working with Mundies?” Snow signs, releasing her ebony locks from a bun and running her fingers through her hair as it unfurled across her shoulders. 

“Snow, don’t worry. The actions of a narcissistic psychopath don’t change the fact that working with Mundies is what has to happen eventually. We may be able to go ahead and start publicly discussing taxation but we should be able to safely promote working with Mundies in a year or so, especially since we were able to stop Arabella and John before anyone got seriously hurt. We just have to get them to understand that our numbers are too small to create a functioning economy on our own” Bigby explains, successfully calming down Snow, as he is always able to do. 

“Is Rose still here?” Bigby asks, realizing how little Snow has mentioned her recently. 

“No, she just stopped showing up a few days ago." Snow shrugs as she sits down on the couch in her large living room. “Her disappearance is rather fitting for her personality, though. She probably found some guy and is living with him now. When that fails, she will move onto the next guy, or girl.” She explains, kicking off her small blue heels. Bigby sits down next to her and takes a deep breath before cutting to the chase. 

“So, about why I wanted to talk.” Bigby sighs gruffly. He was never very acquainted to anxiety and didn’t really know how to act when he experienced it. 

“I’m listening.” Snow comments, prompting for him to continue. 

“Where do we stand, relationship wise? I’m not sure if you and I are on the same page.” Bigby explains. He keeps his gaze focused on Snow, hoping to catch a glimpse of her eyes, but she keeps her sight focused on the floor. 

“I see. You’re referencing the time that we kissed, I presume?” Snow asks, putting on her business voice and keeping her eyes down. 

“Yes.” The sheriff replies simply. 

“Listen-I was stressed, we were both confused, and we made a spontaneous decision in the heat of the moment. I still don’t know what to think of it. It’s been a lot lately and I think I just need some more time.” Snow explains, avoiding giving a definitive answer.

“Take all the time you need. I’m here whenever you need to talk.” Bigby reassures her, standing up and seeing himself out of her home. “Goodnight, Snow.”

“Goodnight, Bigby.”


	15. Episode 3: Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for my hiatus, I fell out of the habit of writing and I’m slowly attempting to force myself back into it. Enjoy!

A bittersweet pain struck the sheriff as he walked back to his apartment. While Snow definitely didn’t reject his hopes, she definitely didn’t confirm them either. What if he had asked her too soon? Maybe she was in the midst of thinking about the situation and he interrupted her. Should he have left like he did? Maybe he should’ve stayed or said something different. He knew that worrying wouldn’t help. Snow had asked for time and he planned on giving it to her.

A similar storm of emotions was brewing just a few stories above back in Snow’s home. Unlike Bigby, who was ready for a relationship, Snow struggled to barely even be open enough to have simple friends, let alone a romantic partner. She was being confronted with her biggest struggle and she would have to make a decision soon; either continue her life shutting out everyone for the sake of self preservation, or risk being hurt once more for the chance at happiness. The problem was that she simply wasn’t ready yet. She needed time to think, after all, a hot headed decision is what began her first and only relationship and she wasn’t going to let another one begin her second. She just needed to think.

***

Over the next few weeks, the atmosphere of the Business Office just seemed to go back to normal. It was as if nothing abnormal had ever happened between the sheriff and the deputy mayor. Strong tension resided inside of the two, obviously, but they took all precautions to not show it. The only minor change is the beginning of preparations for the annual upcoming Remembrance Day.

Bluebeard has made his annual donation to the Fabletown coffers every year since the community’s founding on Remembrance Day. He did so so that his donation would be announced in front of all of Fabletown, reminding them of his strength and power in the community. However, with this year’s Remembrance Day approaching, that means that the community coffers were running dry after last year’s donation, making preparations a struggle. 

Extensive protective spells had to be placed around the Woodlands on the night of the celebration due to the extravagant tendencies of the Fables. Remembrance Day was a day of celebration to remember the Homelands and build faith and hope towards reclaiming the Homelands from the Adversary. In the eyes of the Fables, how lavish you were directly correlates with your patriotism for the Homelands. Naturally, the nobility of the various kingdoms were the most ostentatious. While the peasants still expressed longing to return home, they had less to return to.

Remembrance Day was also important because it was one of the few times King Cole abandoned his penthouse to be seen by the public. Every year he gives his speech empowering the Fables through addressing their bravery in fighting the Adversary and closes with a reminder to the Fables that we will one day return home. Remembrance Day was used to forget about the troubles of modern life in the Mundane world and instead remember the familiar lifestyle of the Fable’s true homes.

With the main focus of the Business Office being planning Remembrance Day, that gave the sheriff little need to involve himself in the Business Office at the time which gave Bigby and Snow some time apart, allowing Snow to think.

“Hi Gabrielle, I’m headed out for the day. Do you think you can handle it on your own?” Snow asks, glancing down at her watch to see that it was already noon on the last Saturday before Remembrance Day.

“I’ll be just fine, go enjoy your well deserved break.” Gabrielle smiles sweetly, looking up from her small stack of papers.

“I don’t know what I would do without you.” Snow laughs before leaving the Business Office. Her heart feels heavy in her chest as she paces past the Sheriff’s Office, wondering if her words in their last conversation had deeply upset him or disappointed him. A self reminder that she didn’t owe anyone anything seemed to fix the problem, at least temporarily. She would have an answer as to if she would be open to a relationship with him soon, she just wasn’t decided yet. She just needed a little while longer, a week or two tops.

Pushing all of her romantic problems aside, Snow continues out the doors of the Woodlands to meet Rapunzel for lunch. The two had some desperately needed catching up to do. By the time Snow arrived at whatever nameless Mundy restaurant the two has chosen to meet at, Rapunzel had beat her there and was already waiting by herself in a large booth against the heavily windowed wall.

“Sorry, I was a little bit late getting out of the Office today.” Snow apologizes as she sits down, even though she was on time.

“You’re fine.” Rapunzel smiles, focusing her eyes on Snow, staring a little bit longer than usual as she examines her features. “Sorry, it’s just, I haven’t seen you in so long. You have so much you need to tell me.”

“Where do I even begin?” Snow laughs, thinking back to the last time she saw Rapunzel before their rather unfortunate reunion last week. The two browse the menu before placing an order and awaiting their lunch.

“When you escaped from the camp.”

“Oh, yes. Do you know how I escaped?”

“No, all I know is I was sent to another camp and that’s the last I saw of you.”

“Well, it was a few weeks after you had been relocated. Late evening, if I remember correctly, the sun was setting and luckily I was left alone for the night. I had been called to a soldier’s lodgings at least twice, maybe three times every week but that night I was in the clear. There had been speak among the army men that the Big Bad Wolf was in the nearby woods, although he didn’t have such a notorious nickname at the time.” Snow jokes, breaking up the seriosity and severity of her story with dry humor. “Well, he ended up coming upon our camp that night, and as every other prisoner and soldier fled back to the safety of their tents, I held up my shackled hands. The Wolf stepped forward and bit the chains in half, freeing me.”

“You never fail to amaze me, Snow.” Rapunzel smiles, looking at her friend with an expression of pure awe and admiration. 

“After that, I helped as many people as I could trough portals into the Mundane realm. Once there was a decent amount of Fables in this world, I teamed up with Ichabod Crane and King Cole to create a settlement to keep the growing Fable community functioning and a secret. So, we made Fabletown right here in New York. It was close to the Canadian portal and was relatively secluded yet close enough to resources, at least that’s how it was back in the colonial times of America. Once we had a community, we needed law. I demanded that the Wolf be found and brought to Fabletown. Once he was here, I cut him with a knife that transformed him into a Lycan and we gave him a human alias.”

“Bigby Wolf.” Rapunzel comments, having pieced together the story. Their food is delivered and they continue to converse over their meal. “So that’s who he is, no wonder I didn’t recognize him.”

“Yes, so that’s all there really is to know.” Snow shrugs, brushing off all of her outstanding accomplishments in her escape from captivity and the founding of Fabletown. “Enough about me, what happened to you?”

“Well, the new camp that I moved to wasn’t much different. I was a part of a trade of female captives, so my first few nights there were pretty rough. After a month or so of relative hell, word spread among the captives about a portal near the camp. One night, about five other girls and I ran at night, with our shackles still on our hands, and we made it to the portal. One of the guards assisting people through the portal was Flynn. He had a conversation with the other guards of the portal and they allowed him to leave with me. The problem was, the other end of the portal was in Germany. We had no idea there was even such thing as a Fabletown. We stayed for about half a century until around 1750 when Flynn decided to go to New England to find work. Once we got to New York, we quickly found out about the Fable community and decided to join. We settled into society and now here we are.” Rapunzel laughs, raising her hands to motion to the area around her.

“Did you know that I was in the Fabletown government? I mean, you probably heard my name at some point.” Snow asks, confused as to why she wa just now reuniting with Rapunzel.

“It was so long ago, but I probably did. Before I met you last week I knew you were still alive and working at the Woodlands, but for the majority of us the Business Office is this mythical being that is there but doesn’t really directly affect our common lives.” Rapunzel explains. Her comments sadden Snow slightly. She wishes the Business Office could help out the common Fables more but maybe it was better for the Fables to be able to function on their own.

“Well, I’m glad that we’re getting to converse now.” Snow smiles warmly. “On a more exciting note, do you have any plans for Remembrance Day next Friday?”

“Nothing too glamorous, we don’t have such elaborate means of transportation as some of the other nobility, but I have chosen a rather nice gown and I have had to convince Flynn to wear a full tuxedo for about the 300th time.” Rapunzel laughs. “What about you?”

“Well, I don’t need any transportation as I already live in the Woodlands so a nice dress should complete it for me as well.”

“No date?” Rapunzel asks, touching a sensitive topic.

“I’ve never had one before, why start now?” Snow laughs off the salt her friend unknowingly added to her open wound.

“Why not?”


End file.
